Ask a Manager: What Drives Your Manager Professionally?

Questions that promote open dialogue with managers include asking about their personal and professional goals and seeking their advice for career progression. Doing this helps you understand what motivates your professional life.

Doing this lets you gain insight into their leadership philosophies and who inspires them.

What is asking a manager?

Alison Green started the Ask a Manager blog in 2007 to provide employees and job seekers with advice to handle workplace challenges, never anticipating it would become such an enormous media empire containing books, podcasts, and more. But that is precisely what has happened – Green’s advice has helped workers handle everything from dealing with difficult coworkers to handling tough conversations like firing someone successfully.

There’s plenty of content about what questions managers should pose to others (and the responses they should provide). Still, we rarely hear much about the questions managers must pose to themselves when assessing their performance, managing up or cross-functionally, and setting themselves up for success in both professional and personal realms. But such questions can make a big difference when it comes to being an effective manager; such queries help ensure open lines of communication among team members and within themselves- and provide the basis for future successes both personally and professionally.

Monitoring the pulse of your team is one of the critical facets of leadership, yet it can be tricky. People may feel awkward discussing whether they’re feeling burned out in their roles, and it can be challenging for managers to identify issues before they have an outsized impact on the team. Asking specific questions helps managers pick up on silent and loud signals and build stronger relationships with their teams.

Asking this question of your manager shows your interest in their career progression while providing an opportunity for discussion about ways you can assist them in reaching their goals. This question benefits new managers who may find adjusting to management roles challenging.

Understanding your manager’s significant points of pride can shed light on their leadership philosophies and inspire them when it comes to professional growth. Furthermore, this question will enable you to build strong relationships with them outside their work life and get to know them as people beyond just work roles.

How does asking a manager work?

Modern workplaces present managers with many issues they need to know how to navigate. From dealing with micromanaging bosses to getting their team on one page – managers need guidance in managing workplace situations successfully. With so much advice available on the internet to assist them, rarely discussed are matters related to personal and professional growth for managers themselves.

An individual might become disoriented after experiencing sudden changes to their role or failure to progress as expected. Addressing such concerns immediately can have severe ramifications for your career; to raise them successfully, it’s best to meet with their manager alone to discuss this matter and formulate an appropriate response.

As part of these one-on-one meetings, ask your manager about their career goals and any significant accomplishments they’re particularly proud of. This can provide valuable insight into his or her leadership philosophy and ways for you to develop yourself professionally.

As part of your professional relationship, asking your manager about any challenges they currently face in their career is also advisable. This allows you to better connect with them and see how you can support them during an uncertain time in their lives – for instance, if they’re having trouble networking in their industry, suggesting networking events may provide them with new connections that lead to future job opportunities or help strengthen existing ones in their current position.

What are the advantages of asking a manager?

Ask A Manager is an invaluable source of career tips and insights into the daily lives of managers. It’s important to remember that managers are humans like everyone else in the workplace; asking, “How’s Work Going for You?” will build solid relationships and promote an open line of communication between you and your manager.

At its launch 11 years ago, Green’s blog started as an experiment; today, it has blossomed into an impressive media empire consisting of podcasts, books, and columns in New York Magazine and Inc. His advice covers everything from managing and micromanaging bosses to finding jobs suitable to you.

Green made headlines recently when she offered advice to GG on handling an employee who cast “magical curses” against coworkers, drawing over 1,800 comments and sparking discussions on Twitter for days. While some may view her advice as minor, Green provided an outstanding example of why managers must remain connected to their teams by tending to problems before they balloon into more significant issues affecting morale and performance. Want more questions like these for use during one on ones? Sign up for Lighthouse as a leader-focused tool explicitly designed to make the most of every moment with teams! Sign up today!

What are the disadvantages of asking a manager?

Alison Green began offering workplace advice in 2007 with the intent of helping her readers deal with micromanaging bosses. Still, her first letter-writing campaign–from someone claiming their manager cast “magical curses” against coworkers to an employee snapping at customers–revealed that her services could go far beyond anticipated. Now, she has published “Ask a Manager: Clueless Colleagues, Lunch-Stealing Bosses and the Rest of Your Work Life” and has regular columns both online and in New York magazine.