Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello.
I hope you're having an amazing day and you know what?
If you're not, that's okay too, because some days are just like
that. So, welcome.
And today I want to share with you, the support and Authority
map. It's a framework that I use to
really organize all of the different soft skills that you
need as a Leader and specifically, as a manager.
Once you move into that role where you're now managing
humans, you need both a combination of self-awareness of
communication. We talked about that in an
earlier episode because that's what gives you the ability to
build the most effective relationships with the people
that you work with. It's both the combination of
your own self awareness, as well, as how do.
You relate with and communicate to other people.
So that work gets done in the most easeful and most productive
and effective way. So the support and Authority
map, most of the time when I teach this and if you've been in
my class you've seen I have this really nice grid with boxes and
colors but since this is a podcast, I will just do my best
to describe to you what this is. All right?
So Have two elements, we have support, and we have authority.
And if you create a map with these two elements, you end up
with four boxes support from low to high and Authority from low
to high and I want to clarify. Also that when I talk about
Authority, what I mean is the quality that you have of Setting
the tone of declaring, this is what is happening, or this is
what the deadline is, or this is what is required in the same way
that you author or are authentic.
This sense of the one who is creating the clarity around
something. So when I use Authority, it's
not from a sense of overpowering or being a bully or trying to
exert your will against people. So if that's what you're
thinking, I want you to have a different perspective.
So think of authority in terms of author, authenticity, the
sense of bringing Clarity and direction to whatever it is that
you're engaging with, or presented with and then we have
support. So, in one cot, quadrant we have
high support, low Authority, in another.
We have low support, low Authority, Then we have low
support, High Authority, and finally High support High
Authority. And it's important to understand
that these four areas are places.
It's more about where you are. These are not two types.
So this is not who you are. It really is a place that you
can be, and depending on what's going on in your day or in your
life. Or with your team, you can visit
any one of these Trent's, you can visit any one of these
places, it will just depend on the day.
So let me explain what. Each one of these places are the
different qualities and characteristics of being in each
place. And then I'll tell you about how
this works, when you're engaging, with other people and
how this shows up at work. So let's start with high support
low Authority. This looks like the person who
has a high priority on keeping the The piece being friends with
everyone. This is where we go when we're
avoiding confrontation and also hard decisions and we tend to
have difficulty standing up for our team but also standing up
for our self. So we're so focused on making
sure everyone's feeling okay and everyone's feeling good and if
you're a person who growing up in your world if that's the way
that you tended to deal. Stress.
Or when you're under pressure, you were the Peacekeeper or the
one who wanted to just. I'll be really nice and I'll
deescalate things and make sure everybody gets along.
Then that might be the place where you tend to go.
So that's high, support, low Authority.
Next, we have low support, low Authority, and that's where we
are, when we're distant or distracted.
This engaged when we are in avoidance, or we overextend
ourselves and become unavailable.
And that's also where we don't give any guidance or mentoring.
And sometimes I've seen this come up in class when when one
of my students will say I was promoted to this.
Cereal. Roll and I keep going to my boss
for guidance and mentoring and they just don't have any for me.
They just say, I trust you go do it.
And I feel like I'm thrown in the deep end and I'd really like
a little bit more mentoring here.
And so what can happen when it shows up is it can either be,
you know, a vote of confidence. Like yeah I trust you go figure
this out and meanwhile, you're thinking I'm in AI.
Feel like I'm in a little over my head and I would I would be
better off with a little Little bit more guidance here or it's
the person who has so many other things going on and they're so
distracted. And so busy, this might be when
if you've ever had a boss or a person you work with and they
continually continually rescheduled your one-on-ones and
maybe you're supposed to meet every week or every other week
and you think look it's been six weeks and you keep pushing off
this meeting and so you're feeling adrift your Saying like
you don't have any guidance, you feel like the you know, the
least important person on this person's to do list and you're
thinking like, you know, how am I supposed to move things
forward or learn more about what's going on?
If I can't you know sit down and have this conversation with you.
So that's low support low Authority and typically if we're
in that space, it's because we also have learned that when
things get a little hectic or things, get kind of tense.
The best thing to do is just get out of town, make yourself busy
doing something else, and things will sort themselves out, and
then you can come back when things are more steady and then
just do your thing. So, for some of us, that is the
most familiar way to deal with high stress, high pressure
situations and especially with a high-stress relationships as
well. Now we have low support, High
Authority. And that's where we put a high
priority on the work and we forget about the humans doing
the work, that's where we get really controlling and
inflexible. And that's also where
micromanaging shows up and very often, you know, when we go
here, it's because we have a familiarity that when things get
Intense, when I feel pressure, or when I feel stress.
I think, if only I can exert, my will, if only, I can control
what is happening and control these people, I can make things
be okay. That's the also, the perspective
of I am, the person who has the most experience.
You need to do things my way, or I am the one who sees the
correct solution or path, your job is to get in line and do it.
I'm telling you to do. Do sometimes to that shows up
when people are feeling insecure if they're worried that, oh my
gosh. If I don't, if I don't, you
know, if my team doesn't get this right, I'm afraid it will
look badly on me and so I'm going to push into the team.
Here's what needs to happen and it has to happen in exactly this
way without regard for the human element without regard for
communicating the bigger picture or we're you're presenting what?
Required from a place of feeling secretly scared.
The sense of. I really hope I don't blow this.
This is super important. It has to go this certain way.
And again, none of these places are bad places to be.
None of these styles of relating with people are bad things in
and of themselves. They're just very human and very
familiar. And what we tend to do is
humans, is we tend to bring, you know, hey, this worked for me in
the past, I'll bring this with me.
Me into this new situation or into the future.
So, when you start to see and notice where are you, where do
you tend to go? What, what is your pattern when
you feel under stress? Do you try to control everything
and everyone do you tend to disengage and get avoidant and
just wait for things to cool off.
Do you tend to think? Oh, if I can just be really,
really nice to everybody and make sure everybody is happy.
Then things will be. Okay?
Notice for you, what your tendency is because that will
then help you to learn. Okay?
So I need to bring up more of this other aspect.
If you're a person who tends to be high support low Authority,
then your growth area and your challenge is going to be around.
How can I bring more Authority into the way that I communicate
and Lead my team? How can I be more?
Decisive, how can I have challenging or difficult or
uncomfortable conversations, how can I protect my teen, how can I
stand up for them? How can I ask for what I need or
what the team needs in order to succeed?
Those will be the kinds of questions that you'll ask on the
opposite end of the spectrum. If you're a low support High
Authority than your challenge and your growth area will be
around the question of how can I be more supportive?
How can I bring more human perspective to my team?
And I'll tell you that one gets very tricky if you're working
with a lot of people and especially if you are working
very remotely. If you don't have a lot of in
person contact and your only communicating through video,
through messaging, through the written word, it can be harder
to feel a real human connection. Ian and one example that I want
to share from a student who had taken this when we talked about
low support High Authority, she said, oh my gosh, that's me.
And I said, like, tell me more. What how do you mean?
And she said well I right now and based in San Francisco, but
I'm managing this project and we're doing this work force
training in Manila and I only get out to the Philippines.
Maybe once a quarter to meet with the people with everybody
in person, And there are 50 people in our office in Manila,
that I'm trying to train up and get them on up to speed on this
new workflow. And I'm so focused on the task
and the deadlines and what needs to happen when and there are so
many of them and they're so far away.
And we've got time zone challenges.
She said, I don't know how to connect with them as humans.
I think of them as like work units.
Need to execute on certain tasks within a certain time.
And so for her it really brought up this question of.
Okay, so what does this look like?
How can I acknowledge that? Yeah they are humans too.
Some of this is probably stressful and uncomfortable for
them to how can I bring more support?
Because just being focused from the authoritative spot isn't
going to be the most effective way to manage.
And to lead. Now the last place that we have
to talk about is high support and high Authority.
And what I found is that most of us and most of the students that
come to my class, we don't exist in that in that Dimension
without a little bit of effort. Because most of us have one of
those first three spaces that we feel most comfortable in that we
feel most familiar in, and we have to do a little bit of work,
too. In ourselves into a place of
high support and high Authority. So here's what that looks like.
When we are in the place of high support and high Authority,
that's when we can be clear kind and direct with others, we are
being skillful in giving direction and corrective
feedback and that's where we can effectively advocate for our
team. And for our self and this tends
to build trust because it's really the least secretly
manipulative style of the others because you're being direct.
But you're doing it from a place of kindness and being clear and
that doesn't mean you have to have all the answers or know
everything that also means that if you don't know or if
something seems like it's not going well you're not trying to
hide it either with niceness or with blame or with frustration.
And that you simply say, okay, this isn't working and we need
to find a way to fix this. I don't have all the answers,
but help me understand what's going on.
We can figure this out together. I don't have all the answers,
but I can start to talk to other people and figure out what we're
going to need to do. I can listen, I can learn.
I'm here to help you. Let's figure this out so high
support and high Authority is a fantastic place to go.
Go because it does build trust, but you have to have both that
measure of self awareness and communication and play.
When you have those two things and are continuing to develop
that, it makes it a lot easier to step into high support, High
Authority. Okay.
Now, the great thing is that when you begin to understand for
yourself, where you tend to go, most often, Where you tend to
go. Most often again, it's not like
who you are as a person. It's where you tend to go.
It's built on your habits. Your patterns, the things that
have worked in the past, you learn, where you tend to go as a
person and then you realize, oh, yes everyone.
I work with also has a place on the map.
That is most familiar to them where they tend to go.
So different people on Team different people at work will
also respond differently because they'll need different kinds of
communication and they'll need something slightly different
from you. So some of your team will need
more Authority, they'll want more clarity.
They'll think you look, I don't need to be your friend.
I just want clarity about what it is that I need to do.
And what's expected of me, and I want to be acknowledged for when
I do that. They want maybe more Authority
from you. Some people will Really want to
feel support they'll want to feel cared for as a human that
want to feel recognized that they're dealing with challenges
and that you know they'll want that emotional connection to
what they're doing. They'll want maybe the high
level Vision to understand why this feels so important or if
they're struggling they'll want a feeling of of perhaps empathy
like I get it. I know this is hard and here's
how we're going to move forward. So depending And who you're
working with? It will help you to learn.
How can you be flexible and adapt so that you can get your
team. What they need in order to
perform their best. And one of the other pieces to
this is you really will need great listening skills.
So again, coming back to communication and self
awareness, self awareness and listening come into play when
you realize. Okay, there there is more here
than I understand. And I want, Understand more and
it's okay that I don't know everything.
I'm not supposed to know everything and the communication
comes in when you realize that a huge part of communication is
listening, Can you listen in a way that builds trust?
Can you listen in a way that invites your team or someone
that you work with, to open up and say, okay, this is really
what's getting in the way right now.
The way that you listen can help everything and can really make
you more effective in working with the other humans that you
have. At work.
So that is the support and Authority map and I know there's
a lot more to talk about with respect to this and some of it
too will depend a lot on the particular situation that you're
facing. So if you're not officially
managing people but you really need to manage more by
influence. And this might be, I've had
students and they say, well, I manage our volunteers and so I'm
not their boss. But I essentially have to manage
their work and make sure that they show up and make sure that
they do it in this correct way. You know, that will look a
little bit different than if you are directly managing a handful
of people or you maybe even just one person who is in your office
and you see them everyday and you you can build a different
kind of relationship with someone that you are under the
same roof with, but I want you to start thinking about for
yourself which of these Places feels most familiar to you.
Hi, support low Authority, low support, low Authority or low
support High Authority. And then, what does it look like
to cultivate and bring up whatever it is.
That'll get you into a high support, High Authority place,
and it might be related to specific people.
There might be certain people, you work with, and they just
create a response in you that She wanted to be very
controlling or make you become very appeasing or make you want
to check out. So be aware in your own world.
Who are the people? What are the situations like
what is the map look like in your world?
And then also begin to consider. Okay.
What is it? That other people need to work
best and if you don't know, ask In your one-on-ones or in your
conversations with the people that you work with you can ask
and say hey I would love to know.
Maybe I've never asked this before but how do you best like
to work? Tell me about the best manager
you ever had what was great about that person and again you
know you're not promising that you can be that best person.
But you want to listen and understand and be open to
getting a better sense of what is it that this person needs to
work well. Because we're different, you
know, we're human and, you know, it can change.
So maybe what worked best last year or last month is a little
bit different than what they need.
In this particular situation, it's more important to be
present and fluid and adaptable than to be absolutely rigid and
unchanging and feel like you have to know everything.
So hopefully that comes as a relief and a little bit of good
news. So that is the support and
Authority map. I hope that has been helpful.
If you have questions about it, please let me know.
If you're listening through anchor you can leave me a
message or you can always just reach me through my website or
through Linkedin. Thanks so much for listening.
If you know it's time to level less but you feel your
perfectionism Self Doubt and uncertainty getting in the way
then come work with me. We'll have six months of
one-on-one coaching and it all starts by going to my website.
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soon.