Manager Bugs

Last week a Dot Release reader and former coworker hit reply to the "Brag Lunch Leader Edition" article and said, “Do owning your failures as a leader next.”

What a great idea! I knew I wanted to write about this, but he was quite right that talking about this now, right after talking about bragging is a good counterpoint. (Also, if you get the Dot Release via email you can also just hit reply and shoot me an email with questions and ideas, too. I love it.)

So let’s talk about some things leaders should do when we, inevitably, screw up. This week I’m going to start with the lower impact mistakes, which I call manager bugs. Next week I’ll talk about epic, or eat least major, fails. 

A few years into the engineering manager phase of my career I was walking to get coffee and beating myself up about a mistake I’d made with my team. I don’t remember what it was, but I think it was something like I’d failed to pass on some pertinent information I’d received and when they got it it caused rework and frustration.

A few minutes into my walk it occurred to me, “You know, I don’t beat up engineers when they have a bug. I expect them to have bugs as part of doing their work. Why don’t I give myself the same grace?”

While that seemed reasonable, I wasn’t convinced. I was struggling because when engineers make mistakes it usually affects technology, but when managers make mistakes, it usually affects people. If I write an inaccurate review, or leave someone out of a conversation they should be part of, or recognize the wrong person for  a clever solution, it affects people. Technology doesn’t have feelings, but people do, as well as careers, families, bills to pay and a lot of other things that can feel at risk when a manager makes a mistake. I was once a day late delivering someone’s performance review and he thought it meant he was getting fired. No, I was just late! But it gave me good insight into how a small mistake I make can have a bigger effect on my team.

I realized that while the stakes felt higher than when I’d been coding for a living, I was nonetheless going to keep having bugs. I had to come up with a way to deal with these manager bugs. So, here’s my advice now what to do when you find one.

The first thing is to own up to the bug and, if possible, fix it fast. You want the people who work for you and with you to feel free to tell you when something has gone wrong. If you show that you’re honest with your own mistakes, it makes it easier for those around you to do the same. And, people respect those who are strong enough to admit a mistake. At least the people whose opinion I care about do.

The second thing is to set expectations with the people who work for you that manager bugs happen. It sounds so obvious. Who DOESN’T screw up? But sometimes when I talk with people who have never been managers they expect, or at least want, managers to be infallible. Managers have so much power—to promote, to fire, to assign work, to find fault, to reward success-that people want managers to be infallible and can get disillusioned or angry when they’re not. You can start to counter program that by initiating a conversation about how you like to handle your mistakes and create a more realistic working relationship. 

Another reason to introduce the idea of manager bugs to your team is to give them permission to file a bug report. Jade Rubick, who writes a great newsletter on engineering leadership, points out that “Everyone lies to leaders.” Yep, and they also avoid telling leaders uncomfortable things. Great managers seek out uncomfortable information and one of the easiest ways to do this is to convince your team you really do want to hear it right from them, whether it’s the meeting where you called someone by the wrong name, the “fun” work event you’re planning that no one thinks is fun, or the impossible deadline you set. The better data you’re getting, the better job you can do. 

Your Dot Release: You’ve got two possible releases today today, pick one or apply both. 

Release 0.1 If you are in a leadership role, tell your team you’re going to make mistakes. Invite them to tell you when they think you’re veering off track or have spun out. And, tell them how you want to be told. Be honest. Several years ago, a CEO I worked for told me frankly that he loved that I was willing to tell him when I thought he was wrong and he was smart enough to know that he handled that disagreement much better when I told him one-one-one rather than in a group. (Most people do!) Him telling me that made us an even stronger team because we had a working agreement that gave me the standing to bring up hard topics more easily.

Release 0.2 Talk to your boss about how they would like you to handle it if you think they’re making a mistake. Bringing this up now will do two things. First, you’ll find how your boss works, e.g. are they OK with you bringing it up in public or would they prefer you talk privately. There’s also the possibility they shut down the conversation altogether, which is unfortunate but useful information. Second, bringing this up now when you don’t have any bad news will make it easier if and when you do, because you've again created a working agreement that gives you a path to follow.

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