What’s up, Moe?
“Are you talking to me?”
Well, I’m not talking to Larry.
“I don’t appreciate your tone.”
Your team hates your tone.
“What do you mean?”
Excuse me. Time for my afternoon tea.
“No, you drop everything and tell me right now!”
I rest my case.
As a first-time manager, you have new responsibilities, including asking your direct reports to do things for you. Stuff ranging from asking them to take care of technical tasks to completing their self-reflections for performance reviews.
“But I asked people to do stuff for me before I got promoted.”
You sure did. You asked your peers for help with individual tasks. Now that you’re a manager, you need to convey the appropriate leadership tone when you ask people to do things for you.
“I’m the boss. I give the orders. My team complies. That’s how management works.”
That kind of shortsighted thinking leads to first-time manager mistakes and sucks the morale out of teams.
The Three Stooges were a popular slapstick comedy team in the 20th century. Led by Moe Howard, the Stooges made 190 short films, showcasing their absurd physical antics. Moe played the part of a bully, tormenting his fellow Stooges with punches, pokes and slaps, browbeating them into taking action. Humiliated by Moe, the other two Stooges complied. Funny material for fans of slapstick comedy. Prime example of a fictional toxic boss.
“But I’m not a bully.”
Maybe not. Hopefully not! You have good intentions when you ask your team to do things. Your communication tone is offending them.
New managers often feel empowered by a new sense of authority. In the tech world, many new managers get promoted due to their merits as technologists. Their people skills need to be developed. Given a little authority, the inexperienced technology manager has the potential to punch and slap and poke their team in the emotional gut, damaging morale and curbing productivity. That happens when the newly minted manager regularly uses a curt tone to ask their team to get things done. Nobody likes to be bossed around, especially highly-skilled technology professionals.
“Alright. I don’t want to come across as a bully. How do I know if my team is offended by my tone?”
Good question! You’re taking an important step towards improving your communication tone. Start with self-awareness, one of the most essential skills to have as a manager. We’ll focus on self-awareness as it pertains to communication tone. You’ll want to reflect upon your requests of your team members, becoming a third-party observer of your engagement in those situations. Sounds a little weird. Right? Almost like an out of the body experience! But it’s not weird to reflect upon your actions and your team members’ reactions. Practice this self-awareness by asking yourself questions such as:
- How did I come across when I made the request?
- What kind of reaction did my team member have when I made my request?
- If I made the same request of myself, how would I feel?
- Can I do a better job of asking next time and how?
In addition to self-awareness, feedback from your team members will help you to gauge the impact of your communication tone on your team. Team members may offer that kind of feedback about their managers during skip meetings with their next level manager. Your boss should be sharing their feedback with you, working with you on improvements. Also, your 1:1 meetings are a good space for you to ask your team members for direct feedback. A lot of people aren’t comfortable giving feedback to their manager though. That’s okay. You can read between the lines, looking for cues that indicate discomfort with your communication style.
“I reflected upon my weak points. I also got some good feedback from the team. What’s the right communication tone to use for making requests of my team?”
There is no one size fits all answer! Every manager develops their own leadership style. When asking people to do things, I recommend a direct, polite tone. Be clear about what you want. Being polite is the only way to treat people – period. You can be direct and polite concurrently. For example:
- “You need to take care of that support ticket.” – No
- “Hey Team Member. Do you have a few minutes to work on that support ticket?” – Yes
A final piece of related advice: Management isn’t about bossing people around. Of course, you’ll have to ask people to do things for you. However, you don’t want to be that manager whose engagement is limited to making requests of your team members. Your team will begin to perceive you as a task master. Some days, it’s hard not to be that kind of manager though. That’s where self-awareness comes in. Take a few moments to reflect upon your actions. Ask yourself some questions:
- Why is my engagement limited to asking people to do stuff?
- What parts of my engagement are missing?
- How can I improve my overall engagement with my team?
Managers need to be mindful of their tone when they make requests of their teams. If you find yourself being a jerk, invoke the name of a famous Stooge as a reminder to improve: Just say Moe.