Julia Rowan answers your management, leadership and team development questions

I am an experienced manager who is comfortable with delegating work and trusting my team to get on with it. This allows me to keep a strategic focus. I moved to a new organisation recently and find that my manager and other senior leaders expect me to have detailed knowledge of the work of my direct reports. I do not want to get sucked into operational detail. How do I stay high level while keeping my seniors happy?

I always put options on a continuum of ‘do nothing’ (i.e. comply) to ‘the nuclear option’ (i.e. leave), and then identify the options in between. 

Before you begin, reflect carefully on what is important for you so that you can shape a clear and positive message. Watch the language – are you ‘getting sucked into the operational detail’ or ‘on top of the data’? My guess is that this is a cultural issue, and if you want to effect change, you need to remain credible.

Reflect on what the seniors need: do they need you to have information at your fingertips to save them time? To make important decisions? Are there trust issues around work done by more junior people? Is there something else? 

Working this out will help you to meet seniors where they are (not where they ‘should’ be).

Ask your manager for their support in meeting expectations while contributing at a higher level (focus on both/and rather than either/or). Bring the same question to your team and get their input and solutions. Reflect on your own expectations – you may need to give a little. 

Identify the colleague who navigates this most effectively – ask them how they do it.
Build the profile of your team: bring them to meetings. Find a reason to host an event at which your team members share their insights, demonstrate their capabilities and build relationships with your seniors.

There may be practical solutions. Could you contact seniors before meetings to check if there are issues they want to discuss? Maybe you could create a shared folder where updated information is posted (either so that you can access it quickly – or colleagues can access it).

There are a few options in between. There are many more. Just be open to looking for them.

Two colleagues who don’t get on keep trying to drag me into their issues. I feel caught in the middle.

In such cases, tapping into our sincerity often gives us the clarity and courage to address tough issues. My guess is that you want to support both without siding with either.

Imagine one of your colleagues is sitting in front of you. What would you most like to say? It might be “I am uncomfortable as I feel stuck in the middle” or “That sounds difficult. How can I help you to address this with him?” or “It can be hard to work with someone whose style is so different”. 

Try it and see what comes out. Then whittle that down to a sincere and helpful response.

Julia Rowan is Principal Consultant at Performance Matters Ltd, a leadership and
 team development consultancy. To send a question to Julia, email julia@performancematters.ie.