Published on | Prototyping: From UX to Front End — Medium Morgan Gore Image Courtesy of Unsplash

You often hear about the core responsibilities of a great manager; being the s*** umbrella, protecting the time of your reports, being a mentor, etc. These things go without saying (although, sometimes you need a little s*** to miss the umbrella and fall directly on top of you). Outside of all of this, there is one thing that is often overlooked.

A coworker and I were having a discussion about previous managers and I had credited my accelerated growth at my current company to my manager at the time, Mark. The volume and cadence of things that I had learned while working with him was incredible. My coworker asked why this was and my answer to her was simple;

No matter what the project was, he treated me like an expert.

Whatever he assigned to me, he delivered the brief as if I had done it 1,000 times — it changed my mindset, allowing me to approach projects with confidence and prevent feelings of imposter syndrome. He didn’t hand-hold me or teach me how to do something, but was always available for questions and support when I needed it.

When your manager trusts you, you can let yourself get in over your head because you’re not going to let them down. Being in a little over our heads is how we grow.

We hire employees because we trust that they either have the experience and/or the willingness to get the job done. So, when we take them into our teams, it’s our job to make sure they feel empowered to do the job we hired them for.

You can find Mark making super cool things at http://ift.tt/2oXIZry

I’m a product designer currently building a team and driving design culture at an edtech startup. Follow me on Twitter Instagram or Dribbble!

The Simple Skill of a Great Manager was originally published in Prototyping: From UX to Front End on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Simple Skill of a Great Manager

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