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A manager is not your best friend

As people become managers, it's quite common for their team members to want to commiserate with them. This is especially true for friendly, competent, reasonable-seeming managers – people want to commiserate with winners. But commiseration, especially with your direct reports, is organizational poison.

There will be no questions, there will be no need for you to explain anything about the situation, even if all you did for the last 2 years was sit on your couch smoking weed and playing Warzone, Greg. “Well guys, we’ve got this” plus that little head nod and eyeroll is functionally the equivalent of saying “it’s all on us, the protagonists, because everyone else is a fucking idiot again.” Those words didn’t literally leave your mouth, but you effectively said it, and as a manager that’s 100% on you. For most situations, it’s best to say “let me follow up,” rather than “I agree that they’re dumb.” In particularly egregious cases, you can go with “I know this is a problem and I’ll get on it” or “I hear you, I’m working on it, but I can’t give you every detail on how and don’t expect ongoing updates” – this avoids gaslighting them that everything is fine, but it also stops the vent session.

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