Seeking advice: I have a Strategy Director who is a brilliant strategist but ho-hum people manager and is not advancing the dept from a business perspective (streamlining processes, balancing budget with strategic output, etc.). Their team isn’t happy so I risk skip levels leaving. They would really be better suited in an individual contributor role. I fear that if I make the move to IC, they’ll leave as they see opp for advancement as connected to team mgmt. Past coaching hasn’t “clicked.”

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It will take a change in organizational culture to decouple titles from expectations of people management vs craft expertise. Some people lead with the quality of their individual contributions and still see more senior titles as validation of that, over and above increased compensation. Often the agency structure mandates that those titles require managing direct reports. It doesn't have to be like that, but the agency as a whole would need to make an intentional shift in disconnecting those expectations and being very transparent around how value is being recognized and what titles/which roles require which kinds of leadership.

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I can sypathasize. I had a boss at one time who was one of the worst people-manager personalities I have ever come across, yet great with ideas and particulaly working with creatives, presenting to clients and new business pitches. He's still with the same agency team, despite churning through lots of strategists.
Is it the administrative stuff this person is worst at? Do they love to share and inspire around ideas?
It the dept can have an associate director look after admin and some coordination of staff, team meetings, etc - this can create an opportunity for this person to lead through their own and other's bigger picture sharing/facilitated discussions?
Just a thought. I've seen this work in medium-to-larger departments.

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Saw this happen at my last agency, the person was much happier when moved to an IC role and gets along with his replacement as well, but was also a unique individual not really driven by ego except for account/client success.

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Talk to them about how this is a fork in the road moment for their career. The shift from contributor to boss isn't always natural or inevitable.

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Any opportunity to shift them into more of an IC role as you’re thinking but deputize (or have them deputize) another strategist (ASD if you have any) to take on a portion of organizational/team management work? With an appropriate raise or promotion of course.

I worked for a CSO who was a great strategist but garbage manager and the VP basically dealt with all that stuff.

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Oof! I am in a shop with an IC for a Head of Strat.
It's really hard to be their report. He is a brilliant strat and he does great work but he has no time for us. He hires freelancers constantly because he doesn't have the time to manage us and manage us in projects. It's demoralizing and soul-sucking. We as a team want to be better, we want to do the work he does but ultimately we are left in the dark. Get an people manager and let your IC do their thing.

helpful

Has he done any people management focused training programs? Do you know how he learns best? (Hands on, reading, etc.) Perhaps you could find one that’s aligned with his learning style?

And/or

Do you have another SD that can share some of the people mgmt, even short-term? It’s possible a smaller team would be easier for him to manage and could give insight into where exactly the frictions/gaps are occurring.

My bad. Tired late night reading and thought I saw “he”! 💕

I have been in these shoes if it helps from that perspective. I wasn't interested in managing and was honest about it - would prefer to be an IC. My manager asked me to just try out managing a direct report or two and I was burnt out from doing it and focusing on my work. At this point I'll be honest, I'm contemplating leaving... I'll give one more go to see if my manager will reconsider after seeing my performance start to slip and I'm no longer as communicative as I used to be. I don't know if your director feels that way or is interested in changing but that could be a good conversation to have to understand their interests. If they do want to be an IC and you think they'll benefit your organization you might need to set them free. Otherwise they'll probably end up leaving.

One thing that really helped me as a manager was learning about situational leadership. It basically helps you identify for each situation where your direct report is in terms of their commitment and their competence. For sure look it up. But it sounds like your report has some commitment but low competence when it comes to managing others, so a coaching approach might work, where it's more about having a more open dialogue about what aspects they find challenging, what works well, etc. I would also suggest coaching in terms of strengths and what they actually enjoy doing. If, like you said, they only push to be a manager vs IC because they think they have to from a growth perspective, they're already set up for failure because their commitment (and confidence) is going to stay pretty low vs something they're passionate about. If you have examples of ICs who have not had not managing impact their career, I would show them those as well.

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Good for you for seeing it and how it will impact the team. I was at smaller agency where my boss had me manage juniors because the other Director wasn’t great at it.
It took the Media Director saying to our boss that the situation wasn’t doing anyone any favors – I was getting burnt out and the other person wasn’t developing.

How have they responded to direct feedback and concrete examples of how they aren’t meeting those expectations? The consequences need to be made clear...it’s great that they want to manage people but if their management style is hurting the dept
it’s an issue.

Having run several strategy depts and tricky / undertrained managers some things I would think about -
1. Start with really assessing the persons strengths, what are they really good at? Even doing a personality / strengths test is a good idea to make it objective
2. Is there away that their core strengths can translate into a management style that this person would be confident in and excited by?
3. How is management viewed within the company? Sometimes the real problem is that people are recognized and rewarded for their individual merit / contribution and the culture is the thing that is reinforcing bad management habits by not rewarding or even socially recognizing people for investing their time in growing their team
4. Put things in place (performance review, bonus, promotion etc) that recognize and reward management performance.

Ultimately someone who is great at doing the hard parts, are super charged if the can scale their quality of output through managing a team to the same effect. In my experience the real trick is reframing their sense of what success looks like.

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