Managing Your Manager

Managers change more often than you realize, especially when a company is growing or downsizing. New roles, new org charts, new reporting lines. Other times, you’re shopping around and you find yourself interviewing your future boss and trying to read between the lines. Ultimately, you will have a new manager in one way or another. Sometimes you end up reporting […]

The Weekly Win

If you happen to work for a large organization, you’ve probably heard of quarterly check-ins or some similar corporate buzzword to describe what you’ve done and what you could have done better for the quarter. That’s fine, but both we as leaders and our direct reports always get caught off guard. I personally would scroll through Jira, Slack, and Confluence, […]

Work-Life Balance as a Manager

As an IC, you close your laptop at 6 PM, log off, and forget about the work unless you are oncall.  As a manager, you check Slack at 10 PM because someone might need you. Your calendar looks like there’s no time to do anything and you haven’t had an actual deep focus hour in weeks. Sounds familiar? Welcome to […]

From Misperception to Promotion

If you are in the realm of management, sooner or later, you will encounter someone who wants a promotion but isn’t quite ready for it. In fact, I have seen many cases where the person isn’t even close. Naturally, we all desire growth and advancement, and it’s great to have professional aspirations. However, promotions are earned through consistent effort, demonstrated […]

Interviewing Your Future Boss

I’m sure you have been asked if you have any questions during interviews. A few things come to mind. Often, we think we need to impress the other party. Nevertheless, tough questions are the ones you want to ask, especially to your future boss. Over the years, I learned this the hard way. I have worked with managers who changed […]