Brian Grazer first became a manager about 20 years ago and says he rose to a leadership position at JetBlue “overnight.”
He had a lot to learn as a boss, and now, 20 years later, he’s Google’s chief learning officer, overseeing a team responsible for onboarding and training nearly 150,000 employees around the world.
One of the biggest lessons he learned when going from being an individual contributor to overseeing other people’s work was to “trust others to get the job done,” Glazer tells CNBC Make It.
“I remember what gave me a sense of fulfillment: getting the job done right, taking the project seriously, meeting deadlines, and feeling like I could single-handedly contribute to the goal,” he says.
But as he became a manager, he had to realize that it wasn’t just about getting the job done and being recognized for it. Rather, “it’s about getting work done effectively through others, which means really understanding their styles and motivations, and trying to bring out the best in them so they can really excel.”
He’s heard the saying that as an individual contributor, you’re about to be struck by lightning. As a manager, you need to create the conditions for lightning to strike.
Three secrets to great leadership from Google’s top executives
Glaser says he always strives for the balance of setting long-term goals for his team and charting a path to achieving them.
He is learning from his past mistakes. “I think where I’ve gone wrong over the years is that I’ve focused more on the vision and the future instead of being specific about the small steps and benchmarks to get there.” Without that path, “teams burn out very easily.”
Glaser says bosses should keep three pillars in mind when leading their teams:
Set the direction, not the destination. The days of spending years building a long-term strategy are “over,” Glaser said. He advises giving your team direction and encouraging them to be nimble and pivot when challenges arise, rather than just focusing on one potential outcome, even if it means landing in a slightly different place than originally planned. Be willing to make mistakes. Glaser says this mindset is key to being innovative and trying things for the first time. It’s also important to be able to course correct when things don’t go as planned. As leaders, “we need to move from being know-it-alls to being more know-it-alls, which means we need to ask better questions,” Glaser says. “We have to have multiple perspectives and be willing to admit to people when we don’t know the answer.” Pay attention to the human side of change. AI is impacting business faster than ever before, and great leaders will pay attention to how the changes will impact their teams socially, emotionally, and cognitively, Glaser says. At the end of the day, he says, it’s about leading with empathy. “How can we really support them to meet them where they are, and what challenges can we overcome together as a team?”
His best advice for first-time managers
For someone leading a team for the first time, “the most important thing” is to focus on building connections with reports to understand “the experiences, interests, and aspirations of your people,” Glaser said.
Doing so, he says, builds trust, which is the foundation for team performance, helping them overcome challenges and ultimately succeed.
“If you really invest time in getting to know your employees and building relationships, everything else will follow,” says Glaser.
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