Newsletter 17 - How do you really know you are doing your job?
How am I doing? It's one of the hardest things to be really clear about when you're new to being a manager. Very often you're only told when you're not doing what's expected, although it's much more useful to be told when you are getting it right.
It's good for you to develop your own ideas as well as hearing from other people. Make sure that you are quite clear about your job description and what success for each of the items would look like. Get clarity from your own manager about your key roles, and what your main priorities should be.
In some cases your manager may not be all that clear themselves, and the conversations may not be all that easy. It's worth developing an ongoing informal discussion focused on your desired outcomes, what your staff are expected to achieve, and what difference your team is meant to be making.
It's often not easy to be all that clear - good management is often easier to recognise than to describe. Keep on growing your ideas - it's important and useful to assess your own performance and to set your own mini-goals.
The more you can take responsibility for what you do, within the parameters of the job itself and what your manager expects from you, the more successful you will be in your career.
Develop a clear picture of what you are meant to achieve, in terms of things like outcomes, team morale, developing new skills and connections, and budgets.
That puts you in a good position to have that useful conversation with your
manager to answer that important question: "How am I doing?"
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