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Mentor
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This is a standard that’s rarely held to nowadays, but in my view a manager should be able to run a project from inception to finish without any significant support. That’s not to say there can’t be technical questions that arise that you ask an MD or a Partner, or that you should feel on your own, but you should be well past the point of not knowing where to go next, etc. You should be able to know what PBC’s you’ll need, go directly to the client for them, be the first line of communication with the client and be able to answer their questions, as well as train and mentor the staff doing the work. It’s a much steeper curve than associate to senior and part of the reason so many “early promotions” are a bad idea, you can be a super smart rockstar but you can’t know what you don’t know and only experience cures that.
To add to this, I was always taught to "manage up" at whatever level I was - e.g., Senior Associate acts as a manager in practice even if not a manager in title. And try to leave your direct management with as few to-dos as possible. This approach has always seemed to work for me throughout my career.
The biggest thing I see missing is project management skills. Good managers separate themselves from bad managers by being able to set milestones and delegate to the team, then adjust to make sure the teams are still meeting the milestone deadlines so that the overall timeline stays on track.
I used to work with another practice line director who told all her new managers that their job was not just to keep as many balls in the air as they could, but to figure out which one could fall and be the easiest to fix/cause the least damage when it did hit the ground because there is no way to keep everything going perfectly. I thought that was great advice.
Mentor
A thick skin. As others have indicated you are expected to know a to. You have to be good with delegating and of course people are not loving the hours and they’ve already got other people breathing down their neck to have stuff finished yesterday.
Really the best thing is to have outstanding project manager skills. You have to be able to stay ahead of the work, which is often impossible because you depend on work coming to you from others. What you can do is keep the lines of communication open in all directions to set expectations and minimize surprises.
Just gonna put it out there that this is a process. I’m two years in and still struggling and worry that I’m either gonna be fired or have burn out to the point that I go back to being a staff person, which means moving to industry, which is always hit or miss.
Run an engagement primarily without much hand holding outside of something you don’t understand or for final review by the person above you. Basically keeping the people above you only in the know on updates otherwise quiet on all fronts.
Agreed - similar to what i posted above. Keep your peeps above you up to date but with relatively no action items on their part.
Agreed with other commenters. I’ll also add organizing PBC data and identifying/addressing issues before assigning to staff, so that they’re in good position to take the project, run with it and complete it efficiently on time.
Coach
Damn - I’m no where near to be manager 🫠