通往成功领导者之前所要经历的不同管理阶段|双语

原文作者：Lara Hogan

译者：张苏月

关键词：个人贡献者IC，管理者，经理人

核心提示：一个成功的领导者必然要经历漫长的成长阶段，前一个阶段管理工作中的所思所想是奠定下一个阶段的基石。

我记得自己曾经在一家公司做研发员，那时我一直抱怨不知道老板整天都做了什么。感觉就像当我们工程师们努力工作的时候，经理只是不停地跟很多人说话，或关起门来坐在办公室里，我不知道他们的工作是什么样子的。

我发现，当有人从个人贡献者(IC)成长为管理者的时候，这对个人的成长系统来说是一个巨大的冲击。因为管理学包含的东西是如此的古怪：不同的技能开始增长，无形的衡量成功的方式，工作性质通常令人难以捉摸以至于让人感觉不像是“真正的”工作。

自从我加入Etsy（美国一家购物网站）以来，有幸经历过几个不同的管理水平阶段。在每个阶段，我觉得作为一个经理人的工作完全改变了。我日常所做的哪些改变了，哪些很难改变，如何衡量自己的成功的标准改变了，尽管我觉得经验是建立在前一次经验的基础之上，但每次工作有点变化的时候，我的思维仍然需要一个巨大的转变。

鉴于管理工作难以捉摸，而且通常是隐藏的，下面我列举了自己在过去四年作为一个经理的一些工作要点。很明显，在这里我需要说明几点：这只是我的经验，对于这个特殊的工作环境、层次结构、要求，还有挑战还有很多是独一无二的。

作为一个管理者，我发现对我来说有益的一件事是：我每天和每周的所作所为对我的队友来说是超级透明的。因此在每次演示和讨论会议期间，我将讨论那一周我的所想，或展示我正在写的一个Google文档，甚至只是我所做的一个日历邀请。它有助于阐明所扮演的角色，而且如果我很幸运的话，它还可以传达一些信息用以帮助人们评估管理者所做的不同类型的工作。

一、管理一个由个人贡献者组成的团队

我在Etsy前管理一个单一的研发团队，包括三到七个工程师的团队。第一个团队是在我到那里之后从头开始组建的，第二个团队是第一个团队由于战略原因被解散后我开始管理的。我是从另一个经理那里继承了对他们的管理权，这个经理将要进入他的下一个管理阶段：发展一个新的团队。

IC的工作：在这段时间里，我仍然不断编写一些产品代码。

上下级定期1对1的会议（1:1s） ：每周与我的上级开会进行工作汇报。

获得的新技能:

1、我在以前的工作岗位上页招聘过新人，但与招聘人员进行更多的现场面试的工作对我来说还是比较陌生的。

2、如何撰写一个性能改进计划。以及当上级领导没有立即看到问题的所在时如何帮助他们进行改善。

3、如何巧妙地解雇一个员工，并通过这一过程学会在这类困难的对话中进行角色扮演，这个技能我已经使用了很多次来帮助其他管理者通过这个坎。

4、如何避免生硬的一对一交流。

5、如何调整我的管理方式，以更好地适应上级的个性需求。

6、如何在不同的组织之间驾驭政治学，以及如何在没有很多权威压力的情况作出一些改变。

我的工作职责：业绩的增长，团队成果的输出。

工作中，我最喜欢的部分：在这段时间里，我开始辅助新的经理人，在别人没有时间去做的时候实现他们的想法，当我这样做的时候感觉很酷，我的做法是在Etsy为新经理人创建一个圆桌会议让他们相互交谈。

工作中最困难的部分：学习如何同一个特定的报告在非常具有挑战性的时间里感性地生存下来。

二、管理ICs以及经理人

最终，除了管理一个工程师团队以外，我开始管理经理人或两个相关的团队。这些团队的规模通常还是相对较小的，每小组少于5名工程师。

IC的工作：我写了一些代码，这些代码时不时会展现在我们团体内部。

1:1s：每周，与向我汇报的每个人开会。每两周有一小时的越级会议。

获得的新技能：

1、管理经理人。对我来说，这与管理ICs是截然不同。尤其是管理新的经理人。

2、迭代团队会议。关于如何在例行检查以及改善常务会议上来让他们保持兴趣这方面我学到了很多，确保这些内容仍然是有价值的，或者只是主动地扼杀他们的想法。

3、更好地控制我的行程。我注意到我的大脑非常疲惫当我与ICs之间来回切换谈论他们的工作以及与经理交谈时。所以我开始更好地进行分组，或者至少给自己更多的空间在上下文切换之间进行适应。

4、发现我的一些兴趣爱好。我喜欢管理性能团队。我喜欢建筑设备实验室。我喜欢召开新经理圆桌会议。我学会了如何远离那些我已经擅长的事情来给其他人创造更多的领导机会。为了帮助他们有空间来发挥自我，并更好地发挥。

5、善待任何人。指出什么是意味着透明的、诚实的和人性化的，当然同时也试图成为一个领导者。

6、尝试新的领导风格。我开始在和我一起工作的人身上观察和尝试不同风格，然后我开始知道在不同的情况下哪种风格更有效。

我的工作职责：我直接下属的成长，我直属团队的成绩输出，检查/平衡以便向我汇报的经理人能够保持团队的健全发展和传承。

工作中，我最喜欢的部分：不仅仅只是向那些直接跟我汇报的人开展“说话课”。我开始意识到在一个房间里面与每个人面对面交谈的重要性。开展训练营，包括其他团队的成员，偶尔也会有一些高级领导的加入。当然，人们在这个会议过程中也会很开心，感觉好像我们真的一起构建了一些令人惊叹的东西一样。

工作中最困难的部分：管理ICs和管理经理人之间的角色转换。一方面，你的大脑专注于团队内容；你谈论代码调试或如何更好的平衡团队为大型组织做的工作。另一方面，你的大脑并没有关注于团队的任务或交付，而是过多的关注你对那些与你擦肩而过的人的影响——你需要通过它来训练经理人，并帮助他们自己完成。我发现在两者之间进行切换真的很难。

三、管理经理人的工作

开始是只管理经理人，最后，则成了管理一群可识别的团队。

“可识别的团队”对我来说就是：当我管理一小队团队，他们向我汇报的时候，我觉得他们的任务紧密相，他们是性能、前端基础设施和应用培训团队。最初，为了方便起见，我们称之为“lhogan-org”，然后随着它的慢慢成长，我们给了它一个更好的名字，叫做“用户体验基础设施”。

1:1s：每周定期地和我的直接下属，所有经理人开会。每两周定期的越级会议，随着团队的成长则是每三周、四周一次。在某种程度上我觉得我也缩短了越级会议的时间到半个小时。由于接纳了一些从其他团队离开的人，我们组人数达到30多人以后，我将越级会议的时间安排为每8周一次。

所获得的新技能：

1、战略和前景设置。我仍然记得让我来做这件事是多大的挑战和转变。我曾经对自己的管理技能和执行别人的愿景感觉如此强烈。但是努力尝试和发展自己的战略思想确是非常的困难。通过他们自己在团队会议和其他进程中的迭代角色来指导经理人。

2、对表现不好的人不再那么客气。对于拒绝抓住和其他思想碰撞的机会也感觉没什么了，因为我白天的工作和我所熟悉的已经不再一样了。

最终，曾经所看到的战略和前景设置已经过去了6个月。在本组织内训练团队发挥他们自己的战略和前景设置。我开始看到了他们的成长。

3、重组。这里所讲的经验教训可能是他们自己的。只是为我的报告分享做一些谈资。我开始比以往任何时候都更依赖于经理人和大家交流，但让大家有效地说同样的事情真的很难，在某种程度上也就是说让大家有效地听到相似的观点很难。

4、坦然地面对自己的失败。以前，我会用一些加以修饰的语言描绘失败，因为我不禁只看到“改善的机会”或其他一线希望。但有时候，失败就是失败。我对这个想法更加释然了。

我的工作职责：上述所有加上团队的战略和远景设置，与其他相关组织的战略和愿景需要召开会议商谈。

工作中，我最爱的部分：当我意识到这群团队周围有一个有凝聚力的想法时，这一刻是多么地神奇，这时才真的觉得是一个组织。感觉就像我正在帮忙支持这一群人做他们的工作，所有的力量都集聚在一起。我开始感觉更像是我起到了一个促进的作用，这里我的工作是创造一个空间以便团队的人更加了不起，产生一定的影响，得到认可。(谈论这种转变是很难的；我以前只知道做一件事不管它是否完美或新经理人是否圆满。但在这个阶段，我的工作变得不那么透明，我认为这是对的。)

工作最难的部分：在这一点上，我发现自己在组织新类型的会议，接见更高级的人这些方面面临经历挑战。想出在组织中如何贡献或者帮助他人而不会看起来完全像个新手很难。这比近年来任何事情都要冲击我的舒适区，并迫使我作为一个领导者成长很多。

四、作为领导者进一步的发展

最近，我开始管理一组团队而这组团队中又包含成群的团队。“产品基础设施”是由八个团队组成，在“管道工程”和“用户体验基础设施”团队之间。这些天，我严重依赖于与我的经理进行沟通，无论是通过电子邮件还是会议。我也严重依赖于在更大的组织中的领导人，经常与他们交谈。

我认为在每个阶段，我只是以不同的方式坐在桌子旁与高级经理开展大型会议。我非常清楚的记得那时我提高自己的声音——更大声或更自信地说，我不明白发生了什么。我更舒适地口头上反对而不是做很多的旁敲侧击或重复我的话。

我也发现当我没有足够能量的时候，自己更加经常地对多样性工作说“不”。

这些阶段很酷的一件事情是，走出自己的领导方式，放弃自己的兴趣爱好，意味着你可以看到一些真的的了不起的人。你看到整个事情——从他们占用工作的一部分时间，到他们通过岁月的磨练定位自己。你有特权与他们关起门来讨论他们的感觉和遇到的挑战。没有其他人可以看到他们已经走了多远，真的，因为他们不能看到那些失败的时刻和斗争，有时是愤怒和泪水。我无法描述这一荣誉。赢得别人信任的时刻，然后看到靠自己取得成功。这些天我的大部分工作是聆听，问他们一些开放性的问题，帮助他们找出他们在内心深处已经知道的。这是不真实的。

最难的一点是什么？有人说成长是美丽的。我们都想成长！我们使用积极的语言来描绘成长！但在过去一年左右的时间里，我开始更多的成长的可怕性，痛苦和艰难。毛毛虫在破茧成蝶之前的丑陋。今年我一直挣扎在这个阶段。我期待更多的美丽。

原文

I remember working as a developer at a company and complaining that I had no idea what the bosses did all day. It felt like while we engineers were working hard and shipping stuff, managers just talked to a lot of people all the time, or sat in their offices behind closed doors, and I had no idea what their work looked like.

I find that when someone switches from individual contributor (IC) work to management, it’s a huge shock to the system. Managering is so weirdly different: a different skill set to grow, a less tangible way of measuring success, and a kind of work that’s often so intangible that it doesn’t feel like “real” work.

I’ve had the privilege of experiencing a few different management levels (responsibilities? jobs?) at Etsy since I’ve joined. At each stage, I felt like the job of being a manager totally changed. What I did day-to-day changed, what was hard about it changed, how I measured my own success changed, and though I feel like the experiences built on one another, it continues to be an enormous shift in brainpower each time the gig changes a bit.

Given how intangible (and often hidden) management work can be, I’ve outlined some highlights of what my work has been like as a manager over the last four years. (Obvious, major caveat: this is just my experience, and there’s lots in here that is unique to this particular work environment, hierarchy, requirements, and challenges!)

One thing I’ve found helpful to combat this as a manager is to be super transparent about what my days and weeks look like to my teammates. During a show-and-tell meeting, I’ll talk about what’s on my mind that week, or show a Google doc I’m writing, or even just a calendar invite I made. It helps to demystify what the role is, and if I’m lucky, it does something to help folks value the different kind of work managers do. 

Managing a team of individual contributors

My first two roles at Etsy were managing a single team of developers, ranging between three and seven engineers on the team. The first team was started from scratch before I got there, and the second team (which I started managing after the first one disbanded, for strategic reasons) I inherited from another manager who was moving into his next role – growing a new team.

IC work: During this time, I still shipped a little production code here and there.

1:1s: I had hour-long 1:1s with my direct reports weekly.

New skills acquired:

I’d hired folks at a previous job, but working with recruiters and more process for onsite interviews was new to me.

How to write a performance improvement plan. And how to help a direct report improve when they don’t immediately see what the problem is.

How to terminate an employee, and through this process, also learned how to roleplay these kinds of difficult conversations (which is a skill I’ve used a LOT to help other managers through this).

How to have less stilted one-on-ones.

How to tweak my management style to better-fit a direct report’s personality or management needs.

How to navigate politics between different organizations, and how to effect some change without having a lot of authority.

What I was accountable for: my reports’ growth, and the visible output of the team.

My favorite responsibility: During this time, I started coaching new managers, and implemented someone else’s idea (that they didn’t have time to do, and were cool with me running with it) to create a roundtable for new managers at Etsy to talk to each other.

Hardest part of the job: Learning how to emotionally survive incredibly challenging stretches of time with a particular report. 

Managing a team of ICs, and also some managers

Eventually, in addition to managing a team of engineers, I started to manage a manager or two of related teams. The sizes of these teams were all generally still relatively small (fewer than 5 engineers per team).

IC work: I wrote some code that made it to internal dashboards once in a while.

1:1s: Weekly, hour-long 1:1s with everyone who reported to me. Skip-level 1:1s for an hour every two weeks with people reporting to the managers who reported to me.

New skills acquired:

Managing managers. It’s entirely different than managing ICs, to me. Especially managing people who are new to management.

Iterating on team meetings. I learned a lot about how to routinely check in on and improve standing meetings to keep them interesting, make sure they’re still valuable, or just proactively kill them.

Taking better control of my calendar. I noticed that my brain was being way too drained when I switched back and forth between talking with ICs about their work, and talking with managers. So I started to group stuff together better, or at least gave myself more space to breathe between context switching.

“Giving away my Legos.” Gosh, I loved managing the Performance team. I loved building the device lab. I loved running the new manager roundtable. I learned how to step away from the things I had grown and adored, to create more leadership opportunities for others. To help them have space to make it their own, and make it even better.

Being vulnerable with people who don’t report to you, like in skip-level 1:1s. Figuring out what it means to be transparent and honest and human while also trying to be a leader.

Trying out new leadership styles that aren’t the one I was born with. I started to watch and try on styles of other people I work with – and then I started to figure out the situations in which those alternate styles are more effective.

What I was accountable for: my direct reports’ growth, my direct team’s visible output, and checks/balances so that the managers who reported to me were keeping their teams healthy and delivering.

My favorite responsibility: Running show-and-tell for more than just the people who report directly to me. I started to realize the huge value of having face time with everyone in one room. Bootcampers, people from other teams, and sometimes senior leaders would join occasionally. Also, people laughed a lot during this meeting; it felt like we were really building something amazing together.

Hardest part of the job: That context switching between managing ICs and managing managers. For one, your brain is focused on team context; you’re talking about code debugging or how to better surface the work that the team is doing to the large org. For the other, your brain is focused not on team mission or delivering on that, but much much more about the human stuff that you only tangentially have an impact on – you need to coach this manager through it, and help them do it on their own. I found switching between the two brains really hard.

Managing just managers, and eventually, an identifiable group of teams.

“Identifiable group of teams” happened for me when I had a handful of teams who reported in to me that felt closely aligned in their missions (Performance, Front End Infrastructure, and the App Training team). We originally called this “lhogan-org” for convenience, and then as it grew it got a much better name, “UX Infrastructure”.

1:1s: Hour-long weekly 1:1s with my direct reports, all managers. Hour-long skip level 1:1s with their reports, at first every two weeks, then every three, then every four as the teams grew. At some point I think I also shortened them to a half-hour for skip levels. By the time we hit 30+ people in the organization due to inheriting some teams from folks who left, I switched skip-levels to be every eight weeks.

New skills acquired:

Strategy and vision-setting. I still remember how much of a challenge and shift this was from me. I had felt so strong about my management skill sets, executing other people’s visions. It was super hard to try and develop my own thoughts on strategy.

Coaching managers through their own iterating on team meetings and other processes.

Being okay with not being the go-to Performance person anymore. Being okay with turning down speaking opportunities and other thought leadering (heh) because my day job wasn’t even close to the work that I was known for anymore.

Eventually, strategy and vision-setting that saw past 6 months. Coaching teams within my organization to do their own strategy and vision-setting. I started to be able to see the forest for the trees.

Reorgs. The lessons in this probably warrant their own post.

Developing talking points for my reports to share. I started to rely more than ever on managers to communicate to everybody, and it’s really hard to get folks to say effectively the same things in a way that effectively everyone hears them similarly.

Getting comfortable talking in terms of my own failure. Previously, I used language about failure that put a more positive spin on it – I couldn’t help but see only “opportunities for improvement” or other silver linings. But sometimes, failure is just failure. I got more comfortable with this idea.

What I was accountable for: all the above, plus: strategy and vision for the group of teams, pitching in with other related orgs’ strategy and vision needs.

My favorite responsibility: There was something magical about the moment when I realized there was a cohesive idea surrounding this group of teams – the moment it really felt like an organization. It felt like I was helping to support this group of people in doing their strong work, all together. I started to feel much more like I had moved into a facilitation role, where my work was to create a space so that folks in the org could kick ass, have an impact, get recognition. (It’s tricky to talk about this shift; I’d previously been known for doing A Thing whether it was perf or the new manager roundtable or whatever. But at this stage, my work became so much less visible, and I think that’s right.)

Hardest part of the job: At this point, I found myself in new kinds of meetings, meetings with people more senior to me who were going through challenges I hadn’t seen before. It was really hard to figure out how to contribute or help without looking like a total n00b. This more than anything in recent memory pushed me well out of my comfort zone and forced me to grow up a lot as a leader.

Further growth

More recently, I’ve started managing a group of teams that contains groups of teams. (“Product Infrastructure” is made up of eight teams, between “Pipeline Engineering” and “UX Infrastructure”.) These days, I rely heavily on communication with all my managers at once (whether via email or in a meeting). I also rely heavily on the folks running those orgs within the larger org – talking with them way more often.

I think at each stage, I’ve “sat at the table” differently in large meetings with senior managers+. I remember very clearly moments of raising my voice differently than in previous roles – more loudly, or more confidently, or more confidently saying that I don’t at all understand what’s happening. I’m more comfortable vocally disagreeing in real time (rather than doing a lot of side chats or iterating on my words before gaining the confidence to speak them).

I’ve also found myself more often saying “no” to second-shift diversity work when I don’t have the energy for it.

A really cool thing about these stages is that getting out of the way, giving away your legos, means that you get to see some really fucking amazing people nail it. You see the whole thing – from the time when they sucked at a part of the job through the time when they are the go-to person for it. You have the privilege of talking to them behind closed doors about how they’re feeling and what a challenge it is they’re dealing with. No one else gets to see how far they’ve come, really, because they can’t see all those moments of defeat and struggle and sometimes anger and tears and all. I can’t describe what an honor this is. To be trusted with someone’s super honest moments and then to see them totally succeed, all on their own. Most of my job these days is just listening to people and asking them open questions to help them figure out what they already know to do, deep inside. It’s unreal.

The hardest bit of all? People say that growth is beautiful. We all want to grow! We use such positive language about it! But in the last year or so, my leadership coach and I started to talk a lot about how growth is awful and painful and hard. Caterpillars are gross and goopy in that cocoon before they emerge as butterflies. I’ve been in and out of that gross painful goopy stage a lot this year. I’m looking forward to a lot more of this.

生成海报

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