Episode Summary
Honest communication is the foundation of good business relationships and team dynamics, and leading with transparency will ultimately impact your business in a positive way.
However, as a middle manager, you have to balance transparency both up the chain and with your team.
In this episode of Taking the Lead, Marissa Homere, the VP of Marketing at Irwin, gets into the importance of balance for middle management. Marissa and our host Christina Brady discuss the concept of discovery in managing up as an individual contributor (IC), how an IC can develop a relationship with their manager, and why being considerate is the highest form of influence.
Guest Profile
- Name: Marissa Homere
- What she does: Marissa is the VP of Marketing at Irwin.
- Company: Irwin
- Noteworthy: Marissa is a seasoned marketing and demand generation leader and is currently the VP of Marketing at Irwin, an investor relations and capital markets software company based in Toronto. For over a decade, Marissa has built and scaled marketing teams in agency, telecom, and computer software, achieving high levels of revenue and brand growth for organizations like REALTOR.ca, Xplornet Communications, Clover Leaf Seafoods, Colliers Project Leaders, Algonquin College, Corel, and York University. She has been selected as one of The Peak's Emerging Leaders for 2023.
Key Insights
- The concept of discovery. Managing up as an individual contributor requires a proactive approach to communication and relationship-building as well as a strong focus on delivering high-quality work and adding value to the team or organization. As Marissa says, people who only want to be individual contributors and not lead people also want to be really excellent and influential in their craft, and a lot of it comes down to how you view and understand other people's reactions to you and your work. "One of the great things I learned in an agency is the concept of discovery, and that applies to the work, but it also applies to the people. It's like, 'What is it that motivates you, and how can I speak to that with my work?' Or, 'How can I speak to that in the situation? How can I show you that what I do helps you accomplish what you do?' And then, it's like the psychological component, which is understanding what blockers there may be with this person, whether they be communication or emotional. Pride is a big one, too; nobody ever wants to give up their own seat, and some people may think that it benefits them to take credit for things. So, as an IC, it's really difficult to manage that sort of environment. And it takes a lot of practice, and intentional practice, and a true, honest, genuine want to get to know people."
- How can an IC develop a relationship with their manager? For an individual contributor, managing up means taking ownership of their career and proactively working to build a positive and productive relationship with their manager. This involves understanding the manager's expectations, communication style, and priorities, and then aligning one's work and communication accordingly. According to Marissa, the best way to do this is to ask or investigate what your leader prefers. "You have to really pay attention, and you have to take yourself out of the center. So, what's important is, like, 'Can I objectively look at this person's reactions to me, my work, or the people around me, or the people around them, and really think about why it is that they're reacting that way and not how it affects me?’ And when you think about people's behavior that way, it just becomes really clear, objectively, what their triggers are, what their motivations are, what gets them excited, how you can leverage some of those personality traits in a positive way."
- Being considerate is the highest form of influence. In order to be promoted to a leadership position, an individual contributor must show their manager that they are ready for that step. Therefore, it is important to explain any actions that may not present you as ready for leadership. Managing up is exactly that — not allowing a story to be told about you that is not true and does not reflect your work or character, or even your intent. Marissa notes that being considerate is the crux. "The best leaders consider their teams and the decisions that they make in conversations that they have; the best ICs consider the customer. They consider how their actions impact others and how they might be perceived. It is the highest form of influence, honestly. It's just, ’Are you thinking about other people in those small or big decisions and showing up accordingly to that?’ It's so simple, but I think it's just so important, and it is the underlying theme of all of those little things."
Episode Highlights
Becoming a Leader
“There were a number of things that really mattered to me. One of them was helping people grow and helping them realize their true potential. One of my greatest accomplishments is seeing the people that worked for me previously go on to exceed my own sort of seniority and see them do wonderful things. And I started to connect with that. When my team in the agency started growing, for a long time, I was the only person who did what I did, and then I started to need more support, and I had some really amazing team members that I think just awoke something inside of me that I’m like, ‘I feel like this is actually my calling.'”
Difficulties Faced by Middle Management Leaders
“Balance is one of the hardest things to master, which is representing and advocating for and protecting your team, while also protecting the vision that you’ve signed up for as a leader within the business and protecting the organization’s interests. And then being able to communicate the right things upward and downward.
The real protection of your team is not giving them any additional weight that’s too heavy for them to carry; it’s a consideration in that way. And involving them in the right things, being transparent enough so that they know exactly what they need to know — never hiding things per se, but sheltering and protecting them. But the problem is, if you only do that, it becomes an exceptional weight.”
The Importance of a Strong Community at Work
“I’ve seen this so many times, where people are just done, and I felt like that myself at some points too. It’s like I don’t know what to do anymore. Navigating this complex organization or all of these egos and feelings or tiptoeing around other people, it’s not productive and it’s honestly not a great use of your time. Finding counsel and community is so important in that respect, you see it sometimes where someone’s like, ‘I’m struggling with this; the organization just doesn’t come together, doesn’t value this,’ and people are like, ‘I hate to tell you, but it can’t be fixed, and it’s probably time for you to find somewhere else.’ So, it’s also balancing how you take on that weight and how you communicate with your team and upwards, but also constantly evaluating, like, ‘Am I in the right place? Does this place at least share my values?'”
