Women at Work - How to Manage: Finding Yourself Again

Episode Date: June 26, 2023

Who are you now, who do you want to be, and how can you stretch without taking on too much? Jen Dary regularly coaches first-time managers on these questions. She shares advice for finding yourself anew at work, dealing with disillusionment, and setting priorities and boundaries. Then, a former guest who’s one year into leading a major project tells us about her aha moments. Finally, Kelsey answers the question of whether or not she’s ready to try management again.

Over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. Now that you manage people, do you feel like a different person at work? That's a question we put to new managers. Here's how Jen, Cherry, and Christy responded. I feel different in that I have responsibility for people now and their livelihood as opposed to just myself and my work. I can almost feel myself growing. I'm in the stage of uncomfortable, but a good kind of uncomfortable. I do feel different. I like a different person at work. I feel more jaded. I feel more tired and burnt out. I feel less hopeful. It's almost like lifting the curtain, lifting

the veil and realizing a lot of systemic issues in my workplace. And while I have more experience under my belt and I'm able to work more efficiently, I sometimes wonder at what cost. And sometimes I think at cost of my personality, who I am, and in some ways, my joy and my innocence. Since starting my new position, I do feel like a different person at work now. I feel more decisive and intentional and forward thinking. Having a team behind me that allows me to dream big and to continue to push myself has been key to this new transition. So Kelsey, did any of those thoughts ring true for you? Oh yeah, definitely. Especially Jen and Cherry, I feel like,

are exemplifying both the feeling of overwhelm and almost like fear of having responsibility for other people and not just being an individual contributor anymore, having to care about other people, their well-being, their work, while also balancing your own work. It's just so much to deal with. Yeah. When Jen talked about that stage of uncomfortable, oh man. I went right back to that feeling that at any second I was about to screw up. And whatever it was that I screwed up would affect not just me, but the people I was responsible for. I was heartbroken when Cherry said that she sometimes wonders what her new role

as manager has cost her and that she worries that it's actually cost her her joy and her innocence. I know. And that also resonated with me in that I feel like I lost a lot of my optimism when I became a manager. I was such an optimistic person. But then there was all of these negatives kind of floating around in my mind all the time that I just didn't have that same like bubbliness that is core to my personality. So it was a weird time. Yeah. Yeah. And then I just have to say, I wish I could have had even some of Christy's optimism. Yeah. You know, Jen, she talks about that stage of uncomfortable. I never got out of that stage when I started managing. I left that job before I was able to emerge from that stage. But it sounds like there's another side where you do come out

and you realize that you've gained this confidence and you've gained this way of moving through the world in a different way. Yeah, or maybe if you go in with confidence, you are setting yourself up to move through the world in the new way that Christy described. Yeah. But how else did you feel yourself changing when you took on the managerial role? Yeah, I think the biggest thing for me was I had identified so much with the work I was doing as an individual.

I had, you know, worked my whole life up until that point to get to where I was as an editor and writer. And all of a sudden, I wasn't any of those things. I wasn't doing that work anymore. And so it was harder for me to feel pride in what I was doing, because I also didn't feel good at being a manager. It didn't resonate with who I was as a person and where I felt like I had lost this big chunk of who I was. Yeah. You know, what you're saying is making me think about how there's very little glory in being a good manager, but there is the glory of an article with your byline or your name on a podcast. It's nice, right? You feel the warmth of the attention. And management is kind of by its nature about stepping out of the spotlight, don't you think?

Yeah. I think it takes a lot of selflessness that I wasn't ready to practice at the time. I still don't know if I'm ready to practice it, but we'll get there. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Kelsey Alpeo. And I'm Amy Bernstein. So a lot of this is about identity, right? And how it shifts when you take on a new role. Yeah, absolutely.

Fortunately, you have found someone who guides managers through these mixed feelings and self-discovery, Jen Derry. Yes. Jen's a leadership coach who helps people make sense of their new and changing identity at work. She's here with advice for defining who you are now and for setting priorities and boundaries that'll keep you intact mentally, emotionally,

and professionally. Jen, what type of identity work is important for first-time managers to do? There is identity work to do probably a little bit ahead of time, but certainly at that moment, which is who do I want to be and what is my intention, that is helpful. And I would also advise folks to come up with two, three people in their mind who's a leader that they admire. Why? What qualities exist in those people that I might start to inherit and act from myself? And you kind of become this just combined marshmallow man. You're sort of adding chunks of influences and people that you've worked with and worked for, books you've read, moments you've observed out in the world where leadership was happening.

But honestly, time and experience is also helpful. It's hard for you to predict the identity you're going to have ahead of time when it comes to some of these heavier lifts in a career and certainly a responsibility that comes with management and the kind of modeling that you're doing and the way people are looking to you. What are some of those key inflection points where, you know, you can take a moment to step back and say, okay, I'm going to move forward intentionally here. So one might be giving someone very critical feedback or talking about underperformance. That's hard. We are very nice people and it's hard to sit down and have confidence and calm when you have that sort of talk with someone. When you make a first hire, it feels exhilarating to go

through that process, look at all kinds of candidates, wonder about whose personality, skill set, dynamism is going to come into that team. And they say yes, and it's really exciting. It's this new opportunity. Of course, letting someone go is another classic one of those. It's great to have intention. It's really important to take a second and wonder why you're interested in this, but so much of it is going to come from the experiences, the challenges, the victories along the way that is going to solidify, oh yeah, that's when I'm brave. Oh yeah, that's when I need more support. What advice do you have for managers who have lost a piece of their identity in not being an

individual contributor anymore and not having that role that they resonated with. There is a bit of grieving. What's funny, so in terms of the cycle of things, what I see when someone first gets promoted is, oh my God, this is so exciting. I got the promotion. They call their parents, tell their partner, certainly post on LinkedIn, i have a new role and then maybe like six eight ten weeks in it's like uh oh i i i used to like what i was in the weeds i made the stuff and then i shipped the stuff and then i got a new project but now my currency is people and people never ship. People never have the deadline where you're done with them. So it's a very different flow of work. And with people, you have to pace yourself differently. The success metric looks really different. So there's usually a grieving period at some point where people think, did I screw this up? Did I take a wrong turn? And hopefully they have support and community and resources to get them through that question to either pivot back or the decision to say,

well, this is a new ballgame. How can I be successful here? How would you even know to have that conversation with yourself? Yeah. Well, I interviewed someone once on my podcast actually about this and she said she gives herself a timeframe. So she stretched and said, I would like to try management because I think the skills that I would learn there, even if I didn't stick with it, would be really helpful for me as I move into tech leadership, for example. And so she gave herself 18 months. She said, I'm going to be a manager for 18 months. And at the end of that, I will decide if I want to keep doing that or if I want to get an IC leadership role. So in the tech space, that could be a tech lead or someone who's not people managing necessarily. I think that was

really smart to give a number of months so that you are not so tied to the emotion of the moment. And what I would add to that is that risks are discomforting. And if you sit in the discomfort and feel it as pain and as a warning that you're in the wrong place, then you're not going to grow. But if you understand that the discomfort is going to get you somewhere where you really do want to go, then that's helpful. But of course, Ginni Rometty had a 40, 50-year career from which to draw this kind of insight. Yeah, it reminds me very much of exercise and training. It hurts, you know, when you start training for something, it hurts. And there is that blurry line sometimes between, am I harming myself or is this normal growth? And I think that's true for careers too. Should I be strong arming myself through this period or have I just really ended up in the wrong role? Another very important component of all this is do you actually want to be a manager but not at this company?

The culture of a place is highly influential on how you feel successful, the support you're given, the resources, and beyond, and also what's being modeled for you, I should say. So the role might actually be one you're interested in, but the circumstance or the environment you're in might not be the best place for you to either start your career in this or continue your career towards management. How do you figure that out? I think it's hard to see without, I don't want to say third party, but you know, someone who's not you. So pay attention to what the people around you are observing. Are they seeing that you have nothing positive to say about work

and you're not energized at the end of the day, but you're rather just totally sort of deflated on the regular? And if you do have that self-awareness, some people journal, some people keep track of their energy at the end of the day or an adjective that describes them. Look at your data. What's it suggesting about where you are? Are you set up for success in this place or not? Are people that you really respect and liked working with, are they leaving? That would be a sign that maybe you're not in the right place. Right. And there's a difference too between, you know, that feeling of grief, feeling that change and feeling that transition versus one of our listeners, Cherry, mentioned that she started to feel more jaded and hopeless at work when she became a

manager because all of a sudden she was seeing all of these things behind the scenes that she wasn't seeing before. She was seeing the systemic issues. And as a new manager, if you want to take action and maybe try and address some of that disillusionment, how would you coach somebody to do that? I think I would ask what's possible. I'm a big fan of making lists. So I might first ask them to bring to the next coaching session the top five things that they're bummed out about. And then I would say, what of this could be improved? What do you have power to look at? What could be moved forward a little bit? And then we would pick off the list a couple of very tangible things to move forward. That would include going directly to your manager and feeding some feedback up about it. That would

include asking for permission to take on sort of like, hey, I'd like to revisit the policy for maternity leave. Is that something that HR is open to? Are you looking for a collaborator on that? And in this case, I'm talking more about policies, but you might just be frustrated with the kind of software your team uses. Maybe you can ask for different software. Like nothing really hurts, you know, for you to ask. You don't need to ask it in a very entitled way, but you certainly can say, hey, I'm two months into managing and I've got some notes. Can I talk them through with you, manager? Can I find out from you if there's any wiggle room here? Because I have some ideas for evolutions

and improvements I'd like to make. And you're allowed to say that because guess what? You just got more authority and more power now that you're a manager. I think that gets kind of overlooked sometimes in the daunt of getting promoted into management. And I think it's, you know, just when I've talked to people who have felt that disillusionment, I have found myself saying, you know, you now know that management is messy and there are a thousand opportunities for improvement and there is a unique and evanescent value that you're bringing to your role right now, and that is your fresh eyes. So remember that and speak up. Yeah.

Okay. So Jen, a listener also named Jen. Good name. Yeah, it's a great name. Shared that one of the most jarring parts of becoming a manager for her was suddenly having responsibility for other people and their livelihoods. Again, we're talking about the realities of management, right? How can new managers cope with that kind of pressure? I feel this as a coach. I think many of us in a more service or support-oriented role feel this, which is, I want to help them. I want to save them. I want to make it all very good. But there's a maturity that comes with these kind of roles where you realize that there is a boundary.

This is what I can do, and this is what then you need to do. And you may struggle to say, I can't do anything beyond this. But the success metrics at the end of the day for a manager are really blurry. Like, what was a good day? Nobody quit? You didn't have to fire anybody? One of the core principles of a manager training that I teach is this idea that at the end of the day, you can think, did I move something forward today? That could be a project, a client, a person, a career path, a feedback conversation. And the answer inevitably every day is yes. So that's what you hang your hat on in terms of,

am I doing a good job managing? It's not how much and how many and all these things, but it's, did I move something forward today? And when it comes to people, you can make a lot of impact with tiny moments. If you're able to get somebody's head on straight, let them leave at 5.15, feeling like they did a good job, whoever receives them at home is benefiting from the atmosphere that you created at the workplace that day. So it means they might be a different parent, they might be a different partner, more helpful in their neighborhood. I mean, all kinds of stuff. And I don't want to put all that weight on the manager themselves, but the impact can be huge for the ripple effects

that a strong manager can have. Yeah, that almost feels like more pressure, but I get what you're saying. Well, that's my question. How do you keep a new manager from feeling paralyzed by all of that power and influence? I think you got to go one step at a time, right? So like the first day is, did you remember everybody's names and their jobs? And do we have the deadline straight? But there will be a point where that stuff is old hat and you've shipped a few features or whatever your work is, and you now can start to say, so-and-so, something's up over here. I don't know. I'm going to use our next one-on-one to check in. Are they burned out? Are they demoralized? Is there something going on at home?

You know, and then you can sort of troubleshoot. But at the very, very beginning, if someone just got promoted to management, do not think about changing your employee's home. Like, you just keep it right at work right there. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform. With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. Thank you. professor, Madhupe Akinnola. The show features TED Talks about everything from setting smart goals

to the latest on DEI in business, followed up with a mini lesson from Madhupe on how to apply these lessons in your own life. Listen to TED Business wherever you get your podcasts. So we've talked a lot about some of the pressures that come with becoming a manager. And we've seen in different research, even in the Women in the Workplace report, just how much women stepping into management and women who have been in management are dealing with burnout and dealing with stress. What advice do you have for women to deal with that burnout and to deal with that stress? There's a couple ways I see this showing up. One is the recession or economic climate we find ourselves in, whatever we want to call that. There are less people to do just as much, if not more work. So there is definitely a generation of burnout happening right now in a post COVID time where people are saying, don't be at home, come back to the offices. Also, by the way,

you have half your team. Also, by the way, we really need all that done faster than we thought. It's like, okay, that's just totally unrealistic. When do I say no? And that's really hard, especially if you're a little bit worried about maybe losing your job. Nonetheless, you serve no one when you can't get out of bed in the morning and when you're too tired to show up and you're canceling all your one-on-ones and things like that. So that overload and that overwhelm is potentially coming from that direction. You also have folks who are overcommitted. And that might not be other people obliging you to do things, but that you yourself have raised your hand for too many things. But there will be a limit to the quality of work you can do.

And if you say, you know what, why don't you give me both those other teams? I can take it on. It's a heroic offer. And it can be hard to figure out what is a reasonable challenge and what is too much, what's over committing. If you've got more than seven or eight reports, that's a lot of people in your brain. And so if you're going to go from seven reports to 15 reports, or even, I mean, 10 probably is an okay stretch, depending on how the company's doing. But really trying to say yes to every opportunity is not always going to serve you. So you're describing then this idea that you have to stay aware of what you actually can accomplish well, right? Yes. But sometimes that involves, you know, over-promising.

Yeah. A lot of this really depends on self-awareness and also confidence and comfort with yourself. It's not reasonable to expect that you're going to be able to be calm, cool, and collected through every new challenge in your career at all. But if you know who you are and you know who you are not, it's going to be way easier for you to communicate what would be a stretch and what would be overwhelming. A phrase that I use a lot in coaching is my best work. This is a really neutral phrase that you could use at any point in your career, really almost in any conversation, which is, I want to do my best work. This obligation is stretching that, and I can't do my best work if I've got 20 reports, if I've got 14 clients, whatever it is. And that is a really neutral way to remind ourselves, we're trying to do work together.

This isn't a personal conversation all the time. This is me trying to make sure that the project or the team or the company or the offering is successful. And so when we bring it back to that, everybody can kind of agree that, yes, yes, that's what we are all here to do is our best work together. And for me to share what would be more helpful to me to get to that end, I'm not saying no, but I'm saying I could do that with XYZ support. Yeah. And I think that's hard too to set those boundaries and to start saying no to things when you are new and you are trying to prove yourself both to trying to prove yourself to yourself, but also to everyone else around you. And you're trying to learn. Exactly. Yeah. It's that balance of, you know, trying to figure out who

you are as a manager while trying to not burn out and trying to be good at your job. Like it's just so, so much to balance. Yeah, it is. But this notion of being good at prioritizing or at least having a rhythm of prioritizing, sitting down every Monday and saying, what are the four things that must get done this week? And that could look like do XYZ ticket, chunk of work, or it could look like sync up with so-and-so to see how they're doing. That is going to probably be something that is more managerial related. You're watching someone who might also be experiencing burnout. And you know, the sooner I have this conversation, the more options I have to try to fix it. So just the fact that it's maybe four priorities doesn't mean they have to be very tangible. They could be more strategic in nature. And that's a big part of managing too,

right? It's figuring out what are the quick wins I need this week and what are the seeds I have to plant that might pay off in a month or even six. Make a list at the beginning of the week of four things you have to get done. I'm going to start doing that. All right. Well, thank you so much, Jen. This has been incredibly helpful. Yeah.

Thanks so much, Jen. Oh, you're so welcome. Kelsey and I have a guest in the studio with us. We do. We wanted to talk with someone who's pretty new to management but has been doing it long enough to have worked through the uncomfortable and found herself again. That's Tanya. She's an electrical engineer in the public transportation industry in Boston. Aside from managing the commissioning and design and installation of a major project, she manages a

lot of people. She took a break from all of those responsibilities today to come here and reflect on what we heard from Jen Derry. She's also going to tell us about how she's changed since the last time I interviewed her for our episode, The Ups and Downs of Being a First-Time Manager. Want to say hi, Tanya? Hi, everyone. Hi, Amy. Hi, Kelsey. Thank you for having me back here. Welcome. Great to have you. So you mentioned in that episode with Amy that you weren't really sure about the common advice to find a management style because your boss promoted you into the role because they believed in you as you were. And Jen talked about how in reality you can envision the leader you aspire to be, but you become that person through on-the-job experiences that shape you. How much leadership development for you has been proactive and how much of it. I always knew I wanted to become a manager. So I would say that I have prepared for it for a large part of my life, even if it was being in

school, being a prefect or being something or the other in a leadership role. I don't really think I envisioned a management style for myself. I still don't know the theoretical definition of what I'm doing, like which category, which type of manager I would be called. But I certainly know there are days when I know what I'm doing is working and some days when I know it's not working. So that's when I would come back home and reflect on, okay, how would I handle this differently? So Amy, if I can ask you a question. So if I'm someone who's kind of struggling to see what kind of a leader I am, do you really think it matters? Or by defining yourself as a certain style of leader, you'd be

limiting yourself to what that type of leader is supposed to do? Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I worry about this need to self-define rather than to just sort of figure out what matters to you, what your values are, and to lead with those. So I don't even know what, I probably should know, but if you ask me what the categories of leader are, I don't know. There are lots of different kinds of leaders and there's no one right way to be a leader, but I think it really helps to understand what matters to you and to figure out who has set a great example, you know, or that's what helped me. If being respected for your integrity is important, that's something that becomes a kind of a true north for you. I bet competence is important to you. Just based on what you said a few months ago, the technical skills you bring into this role, why wouldn't that be part of who you are as a leader?

I always think of it as like, what do you want to be known for? Right? Absolutely. I've always heard there are two types of leaders. You can either be liked or you can be respected. I don't know if you have any thoughts to that, if while you were in your role, if you kind of struggled with defining what kind of a leader you wanted to be. Yes. We've talked about this a little bit too, because I struggled with that so much with

wanting to be liked more than respected. You know, it's actually kind of a relief to hear you both talk about, you know, not falling into one of those categories. Because I've read, I don't know, like a hundred articles. They all have different types of leaders listed in them. And I've never found one that really speaks to who I am. I've seen characteristics in each of them that resonate with me, but I've never found that one category that I fit into or that I want to fit into as a potential leader. Tanya, did you ever struggle with the respect versus likability thing? So because I became the manager of a team that I was already a part of, people already knew me and they knew my work. So I don't, as far as I know,

I don't think I had to struggle with that. Maybe the first few weeks there was a little bit of awkwardness. And so I tried harder to be likable. And then I realized at the end of the day, you know, if the job doesn't move forward, then it doesn't matter if people like me or not. What does the future hold for business? Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Until then, over 40,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the number one cloud ERP, bringing accounting, financial management, inventory, and HR into one platform.

With real-time insights and forecasting, you're able to peer into the future and seize new opportunities. Download the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning for free at netsuite.com slash women at work. That's netsuite.com slash women at work. You know, a year into your role as manager, Tanya, what changes have you noticed in yourself? I think I've seen some good changes and some bad changes. For good changes, I've definitely seen an increase in confidence, knowing whether the decision I'm going to make is going to be good or bad, or if it is bad, then what the risks are associated with that. But the downside of it has been that I find myself to be more stressed than I used to be. There's so much work to do, and it always feels like time is slipping away. And then I struggle with time management. And I, as a person, have never had those issues, but now I feel like there's just not enough hours in the day. So I'm trying to figure it out. I think I might be struggling with priorities, but it's hard to define those because I have to define those for

myself. So I don't know if, Amy, you have any advice on that. So sometimes what helps is to separate the urgent from the important and to make sure you're not absorbing someone else's sense of urgency if you don't share it. Right. So you have to make your own decisions about what is truly important for the future of your project, your team or your organization. The other thing you can do is figure out if some of the stress you're feeling is because you've got too many deadlines looming. Can you move some of them out, right? And then are you striving for perfection in everything you do? Or would 75% be good enough? But on the other side of that, if something is not perfect, what's the cost of it? And it's really hard to figure that out.

But you should not be working every weekend. You should not be working every night. How could you sustain that? Right. It's terrible. I've actually been trying to be nice about it. Like I have my phone set to no notifications after five o'clock. I'm trying to be very conscious about it because I realize it's phone set to no notifications after five o'clock. I'm trying

to be very conscious about it because it's just, I realized it's not going to work. Good. Is that working? I think so. The first few weeks were a little tough, to be honest, because I found myself going back to my phone and trying to see what's going on. But then I realized it has to stop. That's good. It's interesting. Is 75% good enough thing? The idea of that feels so freeing because I similarly, I think I have held these perfectionist ideals about who I am as a person and the way I do work. And I want it to be perfect and I want it to be as good as it can be. But who is that serving? It's like it's serving no one if 75% is going to do the same

job. And if you're going to drag something out. Right. Right. There's a lot of value in moving things along in the general right direction sometimes, particularly with projects. Absolutely. Maybe some things require perfection and if others don't, then that's it. Yeah. And most things don't. I think that's a little harder to accept. So you mentioned that you have a former boss who you used to go to a lot for advice. And you were a little bit worried that maybe you were leaning too heavily on his help and that was preventing you from growing. Do you still talk to that boss? I still do. But I think the stakes are higher when I go to them because now I think I deal with a lot of things on my own. But there are things where sometimes I know it's going to go beyond my

expertise and I'm not afraid to ask for help. I don't want to mess up where it affects a wider group than it needs to. So I guess all I'm trying to say is it's on a case-by-case basis. So it's definitely not as much as before, but I definitely still need help. And I'm not going to pretend I know it all. It is for the higher stakes questions. Yeah, absolutely. That makes sense. Yeah. What have you learned about yourself from becoming more independent? That's a deep question. I should go a little easy on myself because everybody's learning. It's easy to beat yourself up and think, well, I could have done this better, or maybe there's a different way to approach it. But just be easy on yourself. That's what I've

learned. So what got you to that realization? Because I think in some cases I have thought out loud, oh, this is a situation, what do we do? And there have been other people in the room. And we've been brainstorming ideas. And at that point, I realized that nobody really comes in with a decision in their mind. Everybody thinks it through in that moment. And so everybody goes through the same thought process as I do. I don't need to have all the answers right away. I'm allowed some time to think.

Right. Yeah. If there's anything, you know, this series has taught me, it's that I was really, really hard on myself. And it's actually kind of nice to hear from all of these managers and all of these experts who have basically told me again and again, like, everyone goes through this stuff. They all figure it out. And stop being so hard on yourself. It hard to get there though it really right absolutely like last time I was here I said something like some days I just don't know what I'm doing and when people heard me say that I kid you not most people including my family said to me really we never thought of you as a person who doubted yourself. Yeah.

And I just, I guess I came off better than I thought. So just that, you know, so Kelsey, don't go hard on yourself. I think we all deserve some slack end of the day. Do you feel like your personal growth has stalled or flourished as a result of becoming a manager? You know, when I first stepped into my role, all of a sudden it felt like my personal growth and my personal development, the things that I had been building towards had suddenly stalled. I was focused so much on everybody else's growth, my team's growth, you know, our project's growth. Stalled is actually a great word for my personal growth because, I mean't I don't want to come off

negative here so I think I've definitely learned a lot like a lot of my communication skills people skills but as far as professional training goes or certifications goes like I have been wanting to do my PMP for several years now and I really thought last year would be the year and I couldn't do it I just I simply didn't have enough time. So I think that part of it has definitely been slower than I would have liked it to be. But again, it's a matter of going easy on yourself. So I was really nervous about it. And I know it, that having a certification like a PMP really helps in a role like this, but I knew I was already doing my best and I couldn't do it. So I couldn't do it. And hopefully this year is the year when I get to do it. It's a matter of finding some time

and focusing on what you need to do to take it to the next level. Because I know if I continue doing what I'm doing today, it brought me from yesterday to today, but it's not going to take me from today to tomorrow. That problem of how do you make the time for something like a PMP certification, which will advance your career. I mean, that's a big commitment. I don't have a ready answer for you. Have you spoken to your manager about it? I have. I actually talked to them last year about it. It was part of my, hey, this is what I want to achieve in the year. And I just couldn't. And I touched base with them and I in that moment, this is really important for me, but it'd be really good for this project. Right. And these are skills I can bring into the organization.

So here's how I think I can manage it if we deprioritize this thing. Right. Or we push that deadline out because then I can manage it if we deprioritize this thing. Right. Or we push that deadline out because then I can do the course. Absolutely. Just a thought. Because, boy, you're not going to get less busy. You're just not. Right.

I think that is a realization I need to have. Yeah. It's the weird physics of a career. You just don't get less busy until you retire, I think. Wow, that's a long way away. Yeah. Yeah. So, Kelsey, I know the first time you tried management, you had a somewhat negative experience.

Do you think you would want to try it again? I think I would. You know, I feel like after doing this miniseries, talking to all of these experts, talking to Amy B., I have a lot more perspective on what I actually went through. And I have a lot more understanding that it wasn't just me. This is something that women who step into this role almost universally experience. And, you know, I think coming away from that, I can look back on the experience I did have and pull out you know the things that I was actually good at and the moments that I actually did enjoy from management like I really loved mentoring younger employees and helping them

grow in their careers I really loved strategizing and figuring out what we wanted to do as a team like there were parts of management that I really liked And I feel like I focused on a lot of the negatives, but especially at an organization like this one where I feel supported. I feel like I have the systems and the people who I can go to if I have questions that I could help the organization move forward by leading other people. And I can't believe I'm saying this. It sounds wild for me. I feel like I've come a really long way in just a few weeks in my thinking about both myself and about people management in general. So, you know, long answer to say, I think I would. That makes me really happy because I think you'd be great at it. Thank you, Amy P. Giving yourself a chance to succeed.

You know, not everyone should be a manager, but, you know, there's so much that you can get out of doing it if it's what you want to do. So, you know, as I said, I think you would do it very, very well. And it would give you a lot of joy. That's our show. I'm Amy Bernstein. And I'm Kelsey Alpeo. HBR has more podcasts to help you manage yourself, your team, and your organization. Find them at hbr.org slash podcasts or search HBR in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. Women at Work's editorial and production team is Amanda Kersey, Maureen Hoke, Tina Tobey-Mack, Rob Eckhart, Erica Truxler, Ian Fox, and Hannah Bates. Rob and Maure compose the theme music. Amy and I want to know what you're taking away from How to Manage. Do you have more perspective on your and other women's experiences with people management? Do you feel more prepared to try it or try it again? Or did you come to

realize that it's just not for you? Whatever your takeaways are or whatever feedback you have about the series in general, tell us. We're at womenatworkathbr.org. We'd also like to hear from listeners in middle and senior management. Do y'all want your own sets of episodes? Because we could make that happen.