Nicola  00:09

Hello and welcome to today show I am Nicholas gorko have got used to the married name now. And I, a coach, I work with women at the very top of organisations and I help those organisations to recruit, retain and develop women across their organisation to develop more fair and safe and inclusive cultures. So welcome to today’s podcast. This is an episode that came about from being a vote on my LinkedIn. So I do a vote every few weeks just to check in with what’s on my audience’s mind what I can most help them with. So when I did this, this came out as the top result by over 50%. And it really came about because I was I had interviewed an incredible lady that works for Microsoft, Stephanie. And Stephanie leads their managers development programme, which I’ll tell you a little bit more about as we go through today’s show. But she so inspired me to want to come on and talk about just really what is a manager? define who they are, define why they’re so important in all organisation? And then how we can we as leaders can help develop the skills of our managers, and what are those skills and also as a manager, what we should we be looking to develop. And I think for me, in corporate world, there was always an assumption, if you are great at your job, and you delivered and you had a real impact, and you are ready for a bigger role, that actually will just make you a manager. But actually, not everyone is not necessarily designed to be or ready to be or wants to be a manager because with it comes a lot of responsibility when it comes a lot of focus on other people. And actually, for me, over my career realise it wasn’t necessarily the best of me, because I’m a huge Empath, because I’m a sensitive person, sometime leading my team, I wouldn’t be able to focus much on my deliverables and creating the strategy and setting the direction because I was so focused on how my team were feeling and what was going on for them. And a story for another day. But my first, the first person I ever managed, turned out to be someone that was very, very difficult to manage. That was a challenge in itself. And also, for me, I loved running big projects, I love running big launches for organisations. So what that meant is actually for me, where I loved working with teams was really in that matrix management. So I would work with a team of say, 3040 people across the organisation to deliver a huge launch. And I would work focused on their project, and I would be able to give feedback into their reviews, I would be able to work with them really closely for that project, but I wasn’t responsible for their day to day. So that worked for me in the end. Would it be different now? Potentially, yeah. But I see some of the skills of women that I work with very much in being an incredible manager, even at the most senior levels, being that manager can really inspire really motivate really be there and be someone who’s very resilient, supporting their team and speaking up for their team and sponsoring their team. So I think this is a hugely important subject. It was the top one that was voted for my recent poll with 5555 people voting for it at all levels of an organisation, but a lot of people are very senior. And also, I wanted to start off by just what’s the structure today what we’re going to cover, so I’m going to talk about what is a manager? So how do you define who manager is, and then I’m going to talk a little bit about just why a manager is so important in our organisations, and then five skills that I’ve seen, and that I would work with organisations on to really develop their managers across the organisation, and also how to create that right environment. And also what you can do as a leader to set up a way of developing managers across your organisation that you’re responsible for. This podcast is produced by the podcast boutique, and podcast boutique have been absolutely invaluable for me in helping take my fuzzy headed concept, develop the plan of what it was going to be what the podcast is going to be, create a launch plan that then put us in the top 10 charts on launch week. And then also they just put together the editing, they get it ready to launch. So it means each week you get to listen to a new, very well edited, put together episode. And they are the experts and they help you to really develop your podcast so that you can have more downloads, you can reach more people and serve your audience by really creating relevant subjects for right now. So I really, really recommend them. It’s great to have someone on your side And there are absolute experts in this area. So you can contact them at WWE dot, the podcast boutique.com. And that’s also in the show notes. Thanks for listening. Every reason I wanted to talk about this in a specific podcast episode, because I read a lot of reports, I’m a bit of a geek, I love understanding stacks around the lived experience of minority groups around inclusive culture, but also around the lived experience of women. And I think stats bring to life that lived experience in a way that really has that structure and robustness around it to demonstrate this is this is something that’s going on. So it plays out those trends, it highlights where the struggles and the challenges are. So as we report a couple of years back from McKinsey and company’s women in the workplace report, that highlights a situation that has been really stopping women getting to those most senior roles, and hampering women’s career success for many, many years and generations after generation. And it’s not that glass ceiling at the very top is not succeeding in male dominated environments, even though that in itself is very challenging. And it’s the broken rung on the corporate ladder, which is actually that bottom rung moving from being an expert in an area and moving into management. And why a broken rung is because for every woman, every 100 Men promoted to that first level manager, only 72 Women are promoted. So when that translates to men holding 62% of manager positions while women bring up the rear with 38%. So it means that if women aren’t getting promoted into that first manager position, that there are less women on that road to the C suite to the boardrooms, because few are being promoted that first level, which starts on that career trajectory of getting to the most senior levels. And that means that there’s still, women are still underrepresented in talent pipelines are still not as represented in succession planning. And without fixing this, we won’t see that equity, we won’t see that furnace in the C suite, we won’t see that balance of men and women, that’s also going to create a knock on effect and more inclusion and a more fair and safe culture. And especially if you think about over the last few years has been that huge exodus of women from the workforce during the pandemic, the gender equity situation across companies is is even worse for a lot of organisations. So, for me, this is a real focus on career development, and supporting people to step into the manager role. And also to drive that broken rung, repair that broken rung, especially for women. And to be very clear on expectations to support people in developing the skills to know that whatever, it’s something that’s right for them and sits with who they are as a person and what they want from their career. So that’s the other thing I wanted to mention today that this isn’t just a

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affecting any one particular person, or it’s actually something that is inherent within organisations that broken bottom rung rung of the ladder. So on the flip side of that I interviewed a couple of weeks ago, I’m not sure if she’ll be before this, or after this episode, and incredible lady called Stephanie Okamoto, who works for Microsoft in the UK, in the US, sorry, and her role is that she now sits within Global Learning Development. And she has led a programme to redefine the role of manager within Microsoft, and land a programme around managing expectations and skill set, which is called model, coach and care. So all of her work, all of her focus is to increase the skills and capability of managers every single day. So that at the heart of that is ensuring every single manager prioritises really, truly caring about each team member as a person as a human being not just as a number, not just as a resource, not just as someone who can deliver and driving a real culture of care, which is everything that I love and everything that I stand for in the work that I do, and pushing and developing Microsoft within this framework to be known for having the best managers in the industry. And the knock on effect of that is ensuring employees having a really consistent positive experience with their managers. So they have a same level of skill. They have the same level of caring about the person they have the same level of consistency of experience so that they can do the best work so if they moved into a new role, they’re not just suddenly starting from scratch again, there is that consistency. So just wanted to mention that as something for me that kind of set. Set my heart alight with having care within As the name of that programme, the model coach and care programme, and what is actually delivered in that organisation is still delivering now. So let’s get into how do we actually define what a manager it. So again, being a bit of a geek, let’s have a look at the Oxford Dictionary, which defines a manager as a person who’s charged with running a business a shop or smaller or similar organisation, or part of one. So very broad, very technical meaning but essentially a manager responsible for leading or managing a team assigning work that support company goals, objectives, controlling and budget, hiring, and staffing, coaching and supporting team members, providing feedback, providing performance roles, reviews, and supporting team members, their well being, and why managers so important to an organisation. So really, it’s hugely to understand that managers are creating the lived experience of the vast majority of employees across the organisation, they are the ones that are creating the culture and the environment and the framework for those who are responsible for delivering what the company needs at the right time to the right standard. So with a CEO, for example, it’s quite a challenge and to fit in a lot of managing and supportive people as well as their role, but obviously, that’s part of it. But managers are essential to an organisation as a middle people who are the glue of the organisation, between the CEOs and the people at board level, and employees. And they help create a team that helps you deliver on the strategy, make sure that goals are hit. And they are, for me, the lifeblood of an organisation. And they are that very important step between the board and the people setting strategy. And the employees that are delivering on that strategy. So what are the reasons that make managers so important to organisation? Well, they are the glue of the organisation, they are creating the lived experience of people, they do play a role in feeding up to the more senior parts of the organisation. So they do feed into decision making, they make sure that the work gets done to the standard and to the time that’s needed. They are the one that sets goals. So they take the strategy, they take the key deliverables, and they make them into what actually how is that going to work. They also recruit and they develop new employees. So again, they are a huge part of the onboarding process. They’re a huge part of the first touch points of a culture for someone. They’re responsible for the team performance. So if an area is underperforming, or for areas over delivering, that’s locked down to the manager that and they helped also prioritise tasks. So they kind of take the structure and the strategy and they helped to prioritise Well, where are we focusing now. And as that changes, they help manage through that change. They are key communicators. So going, they’re taking the big changes, taking the big strategy, and they’re actually what does it what does it mean? What are we actually delivering. And they are the ones that will make sure when there’s challenges when there’s roadblocks in place. So we’re the ones that take that on, and they kick out the ways the team can get the work done. And for their team, they set the culture, they set the tone, they set the environment. And they have that they see the day to day the lived experience and create the lived experience for employees. But they also need to have that balance between the day to day and the big picture. So for me, I admire people that are able to lead those huge teams, I admire people that have that energy to focus on other people and have the resilience to also support themselves. And I know, I’ve got a particular friend of mine and for her, she’s an incredible team leader and manager. So she is part of what she’s done in her career has been put into teams that are underperforming to help them to perform. Not even necessarily being an expert in that area, knowing enough to understand it, but just being able to understand what the team needs, take that strategy and make it into what are we actually delivering, really develop those team members, bring on new people and take that team that struggling and put it create it into a high performing team. And I just think that’s such a phenomenal skill. So let’s have a think then what are the seven areas and the seven skills that we need to really create better managers? So that really vital linchpin between the very senior teams and the employees, how do we make sure that people are successful in that role? So for me, where we need to start is just skills development. So like I said, just because someone’s great at what they do, doesn’t necessarily make them straightaway into great manager. So just really support them with some Immediate skills that are going to help them with the basics. So how do I, how do I support my team? What are the behaviours I need to be demonstrating? How do I carry out a performance review? How

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do I give difficult feedback? How do I make sure my team or on time? How do I share and communicate strategies? How do I share, communicate, when that’s changing? So just really identifying within your organisation? What are the key skills that your managers need to develop and then setting up ways of supporting them to develop those skills, and not just assuming that someone already has those, because they’re great at what they do, but actually very specific. And this is also part of what I love about the model that Stephanie is created at Microsoft is around, it’s that consistency of experience them. So you’re not going to go into performance review with someone that has no idea how to run that session, that actually for you, as an employee could then make you feel that you’re not as important that they don’t actually care. Whereas it might be they just haven’t been trained on how to carry that out. So what are the skills you need your managers and your organisation to really focus in on to really develop? How do you then create that into a framework of learning so they can be really consistent and move around the organisation having that framework of skills with them? So that’s the first one. The second one, then I think, for me is around connection and care. And, again, I love the Microsoft model, because there is that use the word care and creating a culture care. So what do we mean by that, we essentially mean that we genuinely care about the people that work in our teams, we genuinely care about the person, it’s not just that they’re a resource, and not just an asset, they’re not just someone who’s going to deliver, they’re a real person that doesn’t leave their life behind when they come into work, or when they log in, in the morning. So it’s just knowing that actually, that point of connection, checking in with someone what’s going on with them, it’s setting a culture of caring, you demonstrating role modelling that but encouraging your managers to do that with their employees and their teams as well. And also, those keywords, we come back to so much in this podcast, but go back to Brene, brown book, herring and having that vulnerability, yourself to share a bit of how you’re feeling and what’s going on for you. And also having empathy. So just understanding a little bit about putting yourself into the shoes of someone and what they might be experiencing. And wrapping that all up into this culture of care, where you connect genuinely with people where you actually you understand little bit about what’s going on for that person, you give them support when they need it in the way that they need it as much as you can. So really thinking about having that connection, having that care, especially if you think about looked down on the last few years, move to more of a hybrid model of working and a lot of organisations, just how do you have that in, in a world is changing. And also, that’s a lot of what the younger generations are looking forward to feel. So on the flip side, that if you create in that culture, as a manager, those your team are going to feel your goodness feel safe, they’re going to feel heard, they’re going to feel that they can show up as who they are. And that’s going to help them to really feel motivated to feel inspired. And they’re going to want to go the extra mile for you. So this leads on to number three, which is that the human style of leadership, so I’m not in love with that actual term. But I do love the concept behind it. And it’s that shift away from that more autocratic, old fashioned style of leadership. I set the direction, I am the leader, I set the direction and you do as I say, and it’s more into that more modern human style leadership where you still lead and you still set the direction, but you do that in a way where your team are, they’re able to question you and they’re able to just check their understanding. And they’re able to come up with ideas that are going to help you to get them more quickly. And it’s again, it’s very much a team, even with you leading it. So it’s that human style of leadership and as part of that, having that connection or care with your team, but also you being able to show a little bit of vulnerability. And you being able to empathise with what that person is going through and how they’re feeling so you’re putting yourself into their shoes. And that human style leadership might lead into in your team meetings having a checking point at the beginning. Brene Brown describes as two word check in just share two words about how you’re feeling today. There might be if you have a team slack or whatever messaging system use, having a setting on there, which is not 100% today. So again, you’re not having to go into detail and explain to everyone but your team are just aware of that. It might be that you have a sharing spot in your regular team meeting where it’s just open for people to share something that they might be feeling that they might be finding difficult and just again, just opening up the communication so people know that they’re really safe and that they’re going to be heard. So that’s number three. Number four Lee Hang on from that, again, I think these all flowing together, but feeling safe for you, as a manager to feel safe, but also creating safety. So again, the term psychological safety, I do understand that again, it feels like it’s made it quite clinical, where feeling safe for me is really someone feeling that they can go into work and show up as who they are, with everything that comes with that with the things that they love with the parts of their life that they might be worried about being judged for, with the parts of their life that they don’t feel as comfortable with quite yet all changes that are going through. So it could be a mum coming back into work, for example, am I going to get the same level of respect? Am I going to have that same impact that I want to have? Is the organisation going to support me to get there? Or is this manager going to be on my side? So how can you make your teams feel safe and create safety. And it’s a really interesting one with the corporate world pressure that there is at the moment. And I talk a lot to clients about this that actually even even when there’s so many unknowns, even when there’s so many challenges, you can still create that safe culture, just allowing your team to talk, you can create it by the consistency of having one to ones when you when you say you will, following through on those promises, you can create that consistency in having the team meetings regularly. And being able to sharing what you’re able to share, as though it’s that trust is that connection. It’s caregiving is all those things, and creating safety for people to question to challenge, but also to show up when things are difficult. And then number five is really around career development. So a manager, knowing what’s expected of being able to develop the skills that we talked about as the first point, but also giving time and space to really be able to self review reflects where you are, reflect your skills, reflected for meetings gone badly, or actually in emails being misinterpreted. And from that being able to learn. So you as a leader, giving your your managers time and support to be able to do that. And helping them to self assess, to self reflect, to learn and develop and grow and setting that example to their teams as well. And then the final skill is really just around planning and preparation that leads into prioritising and delegating. So again, it’s that communication for use a leader getting clear on priorities to deliver on the plan on the target on the goal, that then what does it break down into for that particular manager helping them to prioritise so they can then prioritise and delegate with their team to deliver and for a manager to take the time to plan and prep their week, plan and prep the day before for the following day. So they are being proactive rather than reactive, or allows them to be reactive, because actually, they know the meetings they have that day, they know that they have been they prepped on the prep that they needed to. So I think there’s definitely a theme that has run through today. And for me, it’s really around we have the very tangible tactical skills development, and supporting people, managers to develop their career, and also give them tools to support their teams and developing their career. So that environment of learning and growing, having the skill set and knowing the expectations. And the the overlay on that for me then is around that connection, that care, that more human style leadership that creates the very safe and the fair, inclusive cultures. It’s a huge, huge subject, I know that we’ve only covered some of the foundations today. But if this is something that you’re looking for help with do drop me a message. All my contact details are in the show notes. This is part of the programmes that I run in house for organisations. Or if you’re a manager wanting to develop your skills, again, do drop me a message because coaching is brilliant to kind of get you very, very clear on what do you want from the roll how to sharp the roll. So again, if that’s something you’re interested in, do drop me a message and email. All my details are in the show notes. I look forward to hearing from you. And if you do have any feedback from today, do drop me an email. Is there anything else you think that we need to do to create better managers? Is there anything that you’ve seen that works brilliantly well, or the things that aren’t working so well? So if you do have any feedback, do drop me an email, and I will speak to you on the next podcast. Thanks so much joining bye. i Is Nick here. I just want to take a moment just to say thank you for listening. When I’m sat recording podcasts in the deepest depths of Cornwall, it’s incredible to think it is reaching women across the world in 30 different countries and we have 1000s of downloads a month. So thank you so much for being part of that and being part of the audience means well to me, that I do want to grow this audience. I would love you to help me reach more women like you so that we can really drive positive change in the corporate world. So

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you can do that one of three ways. First of all, you can subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode. It’s always a new episodes always delivered straight to your inbox. You can review the podcast and leave us a rating. And the more ratings we have, we also got the podcast charts. And finally, you can just share a favourite podcast with a peer with a colleague or on social media. So I would love you to do that. Thank you for all your help. I can’t wait for what’s next