The Reciprocity Rule: How to Help Your Manager Help You
“I just didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing.”
That was the honest reality of my very first leadership role years ago.
Despite caring about my team and their success, I found myself stumbling through the basics of performance management. No strategic communications. Irregular check-ins. Career development conversations that barely scratched the surface.
Looking back, I wasn’t a good team leader, because I didn’t know what I didn’t know.
If you're reading this right now, you might be experiencing this from the other side of the table, and you're not alone. Research shows that employers often fall short in meeting their employees' basic performance management needs. Many people go to work facing unclear job expectations, minimal coaching, unfair accountability practices, and limited development opportunities (source).
With nearly 50% of New Year's resolutions focusing on work or career goals (source), this gap in performance management support becomes even more critical.
But here's the good news – if you're working with a leadership team that isn't giving you what you need from a performance management perspective, there are practical steps you can take to improve the situation.
Drawing from my experience on both sides of this equation, let me share what I've learned about making performance management work, even when your manager might still be finding their footing.
1. Give Your Manager Honest Feedback
It's very possible, and likely, that your manager has no idea they're failing you.
Often, people find themselves in management roles because they were good at their job as an individual contributor, but then receive little or no guidance on how to manage others (source).
If you've tried initiating a meaningful performance management conversation and you still don't feel supported, here's some honest feedback you can give to your manager:
"My career growth and development are very important to me, but I feel I'm not receiving the level of support and guidance I need from you. Can we mutually commit to changing that?"
"When I don't receive feedback, it's hard for me to gauge how I'm doing. What's the best way for me to get more input from you about my performance and development?"
"I sometimes struggle to see the connection between what we're doing day-to-day and the organization’s overall strategy. Could we schedule a team meeting to review the plan together?"
Thoughtful questions like these will directly communicate your needs, where you see support gaps, and respectfully put ownership on your manager to follow through. If they care (and most do, even if they don't show it well), they will take action to course correct.
2. Help Your Manager, Manage
Here's something that might surprise you: managers have more negative daily experiences than non-managers (source).
When managers are engaged, employees are more likely to be engaged. So if you feel disengaged, chances are, your manager isn't being engaged at their level either.
You can help by asking your manager about the biggest challenges they’re facing, and offering to help in areas where it makes sense.
Your relationship with your manager should be mutually beneficial. This counter-intuitive, but effective approach, enables you to help them help you.
3. Create Strategic Visibility
Ideally, a good manager will spend 75% of their time managing the team. This means dealing with problems and escalations, overseeing career development, and doing higher level work. Only 25% of a manager's time should be spent doing the hands-on, technical parts of the job (source).
If your manager is doing your work or micromanaging your work, there's either a lack of trust or lack of understanding in what you and the rest of the team is doing. You can help your manager by over-communicating:
Clearly document your processes, decisions and outcomes to give visibility into the inner workings of projects
Keep your manager thoroughly informed about your work progress, decisions, and challenges - even more than you think is necessary
After you share communications or documentation, proactively ask them if they have any questions or concerns so you can get ahead of anything they might try to insert themselves into
While this should not be a prerequisite for effective performance management, if your manager is stressed out about the business and constantly having to dig for answers to questions from leadership about the team's work or projects, then it will be that much harder for them to focus on the core duties of management.
Moving Forward
If you aren't getting the support you need and you've tried to have an intentional conversation with your manager about performance management, these best practices can help unblock progress so you can accomplish your career goals.
But if you do all this and find that you're still not getting what you need, in my article next Monday, I'll follow up with how to assess whether or not it's time to move on from your current team.
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Thanks for reading. If you want more insights like this, check out my last article and newsletter, which continue the theme of optimizing performance management.