Welcome to a paid member-only edition of Level Up: Your source for career growth solutions & community by retired Amazon Vice President, Ethan Evans. If you’d like to become a paid member, see the benefits here, and feel free to use this expense template to ask your manager.
We have three upcoming events with live attendance and Q&A exclusive to paid members (RSVP below):
At Amazon, my team of 800 had more than 75 managers. I saw many thrive and others fail.
A Harvard study identified the 4 main risk factors of manager failure:
Lack of self-awareness.
Lack of two-way empathy.
Unproductive relationships with employees.
Absence of goal alignment.
Harvard says that when employers address these 4 factors, the risk of manager failure drops from 48% to just 5%.
Here is how managers can fix them and how Individual Contributors (ICs) can tell which managers have and have not fixed these risk factors.
I will focus on what managers can do to change their own odds since most readers do not control their whole company.
I will also give specific ways ICs can help themselves.
The 4 risk factors and what to do:
1. Lack of self-awareness
Perception: 82% of managers said they have the required skills.
Reality: Only 20% recognize their own strengths & development areas.
We all have blind spots!
If you want to be successful, including as a manager, you must solicit and internalize feedback. While not all feedback is valid, if you hear the same thing from 2 or 3 people, take it seriously and address it.
You can get feedback by asking others to give it and making it clear that you want it (not being defensive).
Manager Action: Ask for feedback from your team and listen to it. Do not just wait for the annual review. Talk to team members in every 1:1 about what you can do to help the individual and the team. Ask them to bring your blind spots to your attention.
IC Action: Pick a good time when your manager is under less stress. Ask them if they would be open to some feedback. Share what is impacting you, why it matters, and what would be more helpful. Be prepared with examples. “Read the room” and back off if the feedback is unwelcome.
For both managers and ICs, consider the books Radical Candor and Crucial Conversations (see my full recommended book list) to equip you for these discussions.
2. Lack of two-way empathy
Perception: 69% of HR leaders rightfully expect managers to show "downward" empathy to employees.
Reality: Only 9% of organizations have programs to teach employees equally important "upward" empathy.
I talk about managing up all the time (and have a popular on-demand course on the topic). If you do it well, you stand out. But, as a manager, you must help your team members understand how to work with you and why it is a win / win for them to collaborate with you on a personal level.
As a manager, you are often more senior and experienced, and you hold more responsibility for group success. You must start the discussions with employees about what kind of cooperation and understanding you expect from them and how they can be successful working with you.
If you want empathy and support, you have to show it first and help prompt it second.
Manager Action: Start the conversations. Have reasonable expectations. Do not expect much empathy if your “expectations” are “to do whatever is needed whenever I need it.” Be careful that you live up to your expectations. It is easy to say nice words and ignore them in practice.
IC Action: Fixing this really depends on your participation. Your manager is likely trying hard to balance company objectives, their own careers and lives, and you / your teammate’s goals. That is a lot, so be reasonable in your expectations. Offering them support is a key part of my popular rapid career growth framework: The Magic Loop (read the full detailed article in Lenny’s Newsletter and/or listen to Lenny and I talk about it in his podcast).
During my journey to Vice President at Amazon, I got critical guidance from 3 different executive coaches. A good coach can do at least three things:
Help you identify blind spots, problem areas, and blockers
Give you specific tools to get better
Help you fully recognize and exploit your strengths
My final and best coach, Sue Bethanis, was hired when I joined the executive team at Twitch.
Join Sue and me for a discussion on both how to get funding for coaching and how to make the most of your work with a coach.
The talk is open to Level Up paid newsletter subscribers. If you aren’t a paid subscriber, this talk alone is worth the $17 ($14.17 for annual subscribers) that you will pay for the first month’s membership.
Perception: 71% of employees feel their managers have adapted their interaction style to hybrid work.
Reality: Only 47% feel interactions with their managers produce useful outcomes.
I write often about how relationships are critical to your personal promotion and growth options. For anyone in a management role, it is equally important that you have excellent relationships with your team.
As a manager, it is very easy to focus on what your manager and stakeholders want and to be overwhelmed by your personal workload.
