Many leaders hesitate to let go of poorly performing team members even after giving them enough time to improve. Few postpone the decision indefinitely and live with the problem despite being fully aware that this affects their own performance and the team as a whole. Why do they do this? To avoid
One of the biggest psychological impacts of getting laid off is the feeling of “I am not good enough”. While performance is definitely a consideration for layoff decisions, it is overrated in the eyes of the affected people. I am listing down the other parameters that go into the decision-making process. Leaders
One of the stressful things about a manager’s life is having to remember the details of every team member’s work. Managers are required to answer questions from their boss, senior management, stakeholders, investors, etc. for which they need to remember details of team members’ day-to-day work and progress. Knowing complete details of
Short answer: You can lead 3-5 Product managers/leaders before maxing yourself out Using a 2-step process, here is how to calculate the exact number of PMs that you can realistically manage. Step 1. Calculate the time expectations from your different responsibilities: There are multiple expectations from a leader’s time. Below is the
When you realize that your team member is better than you, what would you do? First, congratulate yourself that you are not one of those “leaders” who carefully avoid hiring people who can be a potential threat to their position. You have made the right choice of hiring smarter people. A couple
When promoted to a leadership role, one may wonder if it’s necessary to continue functioning as an individual contributor (IC). For instance, a product manager may be tempted to write a PRD and launch a feature instead of delegating them to a team member. Frequently cited reasons for taking up IC work
John was a product leader at a global firm known for its people-centred culture. He was an empathetic leader who always put his team members first. He cared deeply about his team members’ careers and emotional well-being and didn’t reprimand them when mistakes were made. He spent a lot of time mentoring
Feedback from managers could be misinterpreted by team members. Here is one possible misinterpretation – Imagine you had a feedback session with your manager. Your manager listed 5 items under “areas to focus on and improve”. Since there were a bunch of things to work upon, you pick up 2 items from
Sheela, the Director of products had a quarterly feedback session with her PM Sahil. She conveyed the following to Sahil – “Hello Sahil – Good to have you join our team (from the last quarter). Things have gotten better after you joined and started managing the customer experience initiatives. Few long pending
New leaders find it difficult to delegate their responsibilities to their team. A consequence of this is another challenge that leaders hardly notice and reduces their effectiveness. We call this ‘reverse delegation’. Imagine you are the leader. One of your team members drops by your desk and says ‘Boss, there is a
