Submitted by viola77 on
in
Forums
A team member has recently been promoted to be team leader of one of my teams. During a recent staff meeting people were discussing communication within the organisation and how things could be improved. The Team Leader then went on to say that he would like to know "what you managers do all day". I feel pretty peeved by this comment especially as I worked hard to help a team member get promoted and felt unsupported by her in the meeting. I operate an open calender and people can see my schedule and I meet most people weekly. Do I address this with my team lead or let it go?
Careful with tounge-in-cheek
Feedback
I'd usually the regular feedback model. Being extra careful to ensure no anger in my communication. Remember this feedback should be delivered in the same vein as "Great job fixing that problem today".
Management work looks different that other work...
Being able to see meetings on someones calender does not really explain "what you managers do all day". For someone deep in the trenches it is hard to fathom what managers do with all their time, as they don't always have the clear deliverables that their directs have. Planning, thinking about the future, communicating both up and down the organization, all of these take time. However, from outside, it may not appear that much "work" is being done. You can, of course, give feed back about making comments in a meeting, which imply managers don't do much. Howver, you can also take some time to explain what you do with your time and how some of that "free time" between meeting is spent. It can be chance to explain the importance of thinking strategically about your use of time is important the success of a manager or executive.