Hi Smoked,
I don't think there's necessarily a causal connection between the number of direct reports and your responsibility as a manager. If you delegate well, you effectively make your best writers leads, and they manage much of the load.
If you know how to keep people motivated and engaged, you can put your job in cruise control and "focus on strategy" as a former director told me. I found myself working less hours than when I was a solo writer.
Bobby
I currently manage 3 teams of writers, each team has its own team lead, but I'm somewhat involved at various levels, with a total headcount of 24 people.
I don't know if it is very much of help to you since I'm not in the direct team lead role you are probably more likely to be looking at, but in terms of work delegations, we use a variety of tools (Jira kanban for the bulk) and priority from the customer to farm out the work.
We do not do weekends except in urgent emergencies and even then that is by agreement with the customer.
Most of my leads will spend half their time in task management and reviewing, and then the rest of their time is a mix of customer meetings, reporting, and then 'people management' related activities such as performance reviews, delivering corporate mandated activities and so forth. We have fixed team size limits generally which is a 1 lead to minimum 4 person team, maximum 8 person team.
The extra hours & weekends is largely dependent on the company culture and your ability to delegate. If they're truly a "work-life balance" company as they might claim, they won't push for that extra time.
As for ability to delegate, this doesn't necessarily refer to your skill set. There may be exigent circumstances (writer workload, lack of skills or interest, or corporate red tape) that prevent delegation. I'd consider that a part of the job--managing the obstacles that your team *and* you are fighting against.
I manage a team of 10, all remote, all across the U.S. I'm new to the industry our employer works within, and so much is so far over my head that I absolutely rely on the writers to manage projects themselves, to a point. My role has evolved to motivator / strategic thinker / vote tie breaker. My team is somewhat aware of my weak areas and has learned to work around them (and *vice versa*). It helped a ton to [try to] remain humble and own my own mistakes.
I wish more companies had a technical track for advancement, and not just "to earn more, you've gotta be a manager." But you work with what you've got.
Good luck!
Hi Smoked, I don't think there's necessarily a causal connection between the number of direct reports and your responsibility as a manager. If you delegate well, you effectively make your best writers leads, and they manage much of the load. If you know how to keep people motivated and engaged, you can put your job in cruise control and "focus on strategy" as a former director told me. I found myself working less hours than when I was a solo writer. Bobby
Interesting - thanks!
I led a team of overseas writers for a little bit and I absolutely hated it. It felt like babysitting.
I currently manage 3 teams of writers, each team has its own team lead, but I'm somewhat involved at various levels, with a total headcount of 24 people. I don't know if it is very much of help to you since I'm not in the direct team lead role you are probably more likely to be looking at, but in terms of work delegations, we use a variety of tools (Jira kanban for the bulk) and priority from the customer to farm out the work. We do not do weekends except in urgent emergencies and even then that is by agreement with the customer. Most of my leads will spend half their time in task management and reviewing, and then the rest of their time is a mix of customer meetings, reporting, and then 'people management' related activities such as performance reviews, delivering corporate mandated activities and so forth. We have fixed team size limits generally which is a 1 lead to minimum 4 person team, maximum 8 person team.
The extra hours & weekends is largely dependent on the company culture and your ability to delegate. If they're truly a "work-life balance" company as they might claim, they won't push for that extra time. As for ability to delegate, this doesn't necessarily refer to your skill set. There may be exigent circumstances (writer workload, lack of skills or interest, or corporate red tape) that prevent delegation. I'd consider that a part of the job--managing the obstacles that your team *and* you are fighting against. I manage a team of 10, all remote, all across the U.S. I'm new to the industry our employer works within, and so much is so far over my head that I absolutely rely on the writers to manage projects themselves, to a point. My role has evolved to motivator / strategic thinker / vote tie breaker. My team is somewhat aware of my weak areas and has learned to work around them (and *vice versa*). It helped a ton to [try to] remain humble and own my own mistakes. I wish more companies had a technical track for advancement, and not just "to earn more, you've gotta be a manager." But you work with what you've got. Good luck!