What stepping back from management has taught me

Feeling reflective!

It’s been almost 18 months since I left my role as a team lead – I’d built and led a team of six content designers and strategists but took voluntary redundancy. I made the decision to leave based on a few things:

• My time at the company (I’d been there almost seven years and felt like I needed experience in another industry)
• My achievements (I’d done what I’d set out to do which was to grow the content design maturity of design teams)
• My exit strategy (I’d already hired a competent strategist who I knew would have no problem taking on the work should I ever leave)

Leaving offered the opportunity to experience a different industry, but there weren’t many management options around at that time. So I took on an IC (individual contributor) role in a fast-paced product team at a completely different kind of company. It was strange to go from leading a team to being part of one. I made a conscious effort not to tread on the toes of my team lead and to only offer advice when asked. It was my time to regain focus on my craft.

After a year of focusing on UX writing, I was asked to join Clearleft. This offered me the chance not only to contribute to projects, but also to use my skills in growing and leading teams to do consultancy work with clients, which is great.

Over the last year or so, I’ve had a lot of time to reflect on leadership, and here are some of my thoughts:

You don’t have to manage to lead

I might have stepped away from management, but not from leadership. I now lead others in the content community, and mentor some of my previous team members too.

When you’re a team leader within an organisation, you’re also expected to be a manager. While this is great from the point of view that you’re responsible for hiring a team and for the welfare and performance of the team, it does also mean you can get bogged down in the bureaucracy of management. In big organisations management duties can be so time consuming. I remember having to get six sign-offs for each new team hire or contract renewal, which often took weeks. All this admin reduces the time you could be using for coaching and up-skilling your teams.

Businesses need to get better in their approach to management – streamlining internal admin processes so that managers can actually focus on the people side of management rather than the paperwork side.

Leaders all face the same challenges

It’s hard when you’re so focused on your own team to take time out to appreciate what you’ve built and how you’ve navigated through the tough times. Peers at other companies always seem to make it look so easy.

But when you speak to other leaders at conferences or spend time in Slack groups, you realise that we all face similar challenges. They seem to fall into the buckets of hiring or retaining talent, gaining buy-in on strategy or process from other areas of the business, and understanding how to structure their teams.

I’ve discovered so many Slack groups where people support each other and ask for help around these topics and that’s great because it shows that even the most experienced managers need help and advice sometimes. I wish I’d been on these groups when I was managing.

When you’re managing it’s hard to cut yourself a break, but you have to remind yourself you’re doing the best you can, and not feel that asking for help or advice is a sign of failure. Often a new perspective from someone else will unlock a problem for you.

Hindsight is a gift

Since managing a team I’ve actually had time to read management books such as Radical Candor, The Five Dysfunctions of a Team and The Making of a Manager.

The great thing about reading these when you’re not managing, is that you get to reflect on previous situations and understand why they happened and how you could have behaved differently. If I’d read these books while I’d been managing I mightn’t have had that same perspective.

I’ve found insightful nuggets in each of them, even though I might not be inclined to follow all their processes religiously. In particular, tips for having tricky conversations, recognising the causes of certain behaviour, or structuring feedback, have all been really helpful.

Good leadership is largely down to emotional intelligence

Having been a manager, I now observe and regard managers I’ve worked with in a different light. I’ve noticed that good leadership relies a lot on emotional intelligence.

Fostering a culture of passion and psychological safety, as well as creating an environment where teams can do their best work, largely comes down to how individuals are treated. How someone feels at work and how comfortable they feel with a manager personally, will play a huge role in their performance.

It sounds basic, but the best leaders foster this culture through care and empathy.

I can look back now on previous managers and can identify how their behaviour impacted my own, and the teams around them. Some of them were ‘managers’ on paper, but not effective leaders.

I’d definitely be ready to build and lead a team again when the time is right, but for now I’m happy using my leadership skills daily and honing them. I like to think this time of reflection will allow me to return to management at some point with a maturity and fresh perspective that will make me an even better leader.