Want to be an exceptional host manager? Try this on for size.
I have now made it half-way through my first placement as a rotational public servant through the new Cross-Functional Policy Mobility Program (XFN). I’m currently at the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, working in and learning about public policy. As I start to pursue opportunities for my next placement, I am thinking about what I seek in a host manager. My interactions with my current managers have been very positive and inspire me to seek a future host who will follow these three approaches:
Be generous, be curious, and be forthcoming.
Photo credit: Miguel Á Padriñán
Lead with a generous spirit
A generous leader is one who sees work assignments as the gift of growth, rather than just delegation. They are willing to provide opportunities, make space for learning, and share their time.
By throwing me on a high-intensity file — China’s ban of Canadian canola — in my second week, my manager was making a direct investment in my learning. There were many occasions where tasks could have been finished far more quickly if she did them herself, but she chose instead to take the time to show me the ropes and help me learn as I went.
Generosity inspires humble receiving. I can feel uncomfortable — guilty — when a manager invests so much time in my learning. I sometimes worry that I am holding them back from more important or time-sensitive work. However, I have come to see that my manager’s generous spirit is a gift, which I am learning to receive with gratitude. It inspires reciprocity and paying it forward, as I seek to also be the person who invests time in others.
Tailor the job by being curious
My current manager, both during our initial meeting and in subsequent ones, was and is curious about the kind of experience I am looking for. The Director took notes when I said I wanted experience working on Treasury Board Submissions and/or Memoranda to Cabinet and picked my projects with those goals in mind. Now I have experience working on both.
If you are curious about the person who comes to work for you, you will gain a more accurate picture of what makes them tick and be able to tailor the experience to maximize their development. Curiosity is the antidote to assumption and can help foster authentic relationships at work.
Openness, curiosity’s cousin, also supports strong work environments. My direct supervisor reacted with great openness when I asked for feedback after a couple months of working for her. She gave observations about my work and advice tailored to what she knew of my career goals, which she learned by being curious about me. For example, she told me that by building strong processes around policy-making — critical paths, trackers, submission templates, etc. — I will gain a deeper knowledge of the profession and learn to implement projects smoothly. As a result, I built some process documents as part of our post-mortem exercise to strengthen the work the next time around.
Prevent future pain by being forthcoming
When I first met with my current host, she was frank with me. The team I would be joining is thin on the ground. She told me they were a team growing quickly, but in the meantime, they did not have ideal capacity levels for the work demands they faced.
I appreciated hearing this. In fact, it was one of the main reasons I chose this opportunity. As a new and rotational employee, my main hope is that I will be given challenging projects from the get-go. I imagined that if a team is small, they would be forced to utilize all resources, even the new, inexperienced ones, to full capacity.
This theory bore fruit. Working on the canola file gave me a true trial by fire. I love learning that way and felt deeply grateful to be the one they chose to put on the project, despite my complete lack of experience with the organization, the file, and the field.
However, this theory was an assumption on my part. I assumed I would be utilized at full capacity because the team was small. Frankness, of course, needs to work both ways. In future meetings with potential hosts, I will be clear about my need for a high volume of work to feel fulfilled, instead of trying to assess by myself how busy the team will be.
