

In today’s episode of The Startup Chat, Steli and Hiten talk about how to manage your managers.

Managing your manager isn’t just good for you, it’s also good for them as well.

Your manager has difficult decisions to make, deadlines to meet and the objectives of their own they have to fulfill. Helping your manager manage their own workload goes a long way towards supporting them.

Tune in to this week’s episode to hear Steli and Hiten thoughts on why you should manage your manager, how to do it the right way, and they share tips that can help you manage them more effectively.

Time Stamped Show Notes:

00:32 Why this topic was chosen.

02:15 A good example of how to manage your boss.

04:00 Why communication and following up is important.

05:29 Why everybody, regardless of seniority, should be managed.

05:45 Why every team member should develop the ability to manage.

06:22 The importance of being held accountable.

06:42 Why it’s important to focus on the outcome.

07:47 The importance of understanding the difference between good and bad.

09:39 Why having a sense of ownership and responsibility is important

10:50 The right mindset to have and develop.

3 Key Points:

Ryan is good at using me as a resource when needed.

I think there is tremendous value in understanding that everybody can be managed

The ability to manage is such an amazing skill that everybody should develop.

Steli Efti: Hey everybody, this is Steli Efti.



Hiten Shah: And this is Hiten Shah.



Steli Efti: In today's episode we want to talk about how to manage your managers. Here's what the topic's all about and why I care about this, and why I wanted to talk to you about this, Hiten. There's two things that are happening a lot that I see. One is that, oftentimes when we talk about leadership development within the company; taking somebody that's junior, that's an individual contributor, and then because they're so good at what they do, helping them grow out of an individual contributor role and becoming somebody that is in a leadership role and maybe have people management responsibilities. There is a lot of books and literature and content out there in terms of how to help somebody become a good leader and become a good manager and tools, techniques, all that good stuff. But, that's always happening kind of after the fact, that you're being put in a position like this. You're an individual contributor, nobody really cares about developing you as a leader, and then the moment you are put in that position, now you have this challenge; you have zero skills when it comes to leadership, or very little skills when it comes to management. That's a problem that I think can be addressed with what I want to talk about, which is cultivating a culture of managing up and teaching people to manage upwards, not just downwards in the org chart. The other thing is that we recently had somebody join the team, big shout out to Ryan Robinson, who some of you might already know, who-



Ryan Robinson: What up!



Steli Efti: What up Ryan? ...who, one of my favorite things about him, and he's not the only one that's doing this well, and has done this well in the past, but it's kind of a recent example that prompted this topic top of mind for me. It's that Ryan, although he is one of the newest members of the company, and although he does not have yet any kind of management title or management expectations in terms of managing people within the organization, and although I am one of the founders of the business and the CEO, and definitely you could consider me his boss (I hired him); he, from day one, from day one, was incredibly good at managing me. What do I mean by managing me? At times,

Key points in this episode

Key Highlights

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