What’s your goal as a manager? What should be the result of your work? How do you define success? How do you make an impact?

Being a manager, the answer to those questions is not that simple.

How do I make an Impact?

It’s usually easier for Individual Contributors. At least on the surface. As an IC you are expected to deliver. Work on your tasks, write code, fill reports, whatever is needed. Then you mark it as done and voila! Impact!

Well, not really. Delivering work and making an impact is not always the same. Still, it’s easier to draw the line between the daily work of an IC to the impact she makes.

What about managers? A manager is a senior position. So it’s expected that you will have a significant impact! Much bigger than an IC. But how? And what do we even consider a manager’s impact?

Inexperienced managers often take the wrong path here. They want to achieve more by working more. They have a new role but stick to old habits. They try to make an impact by jumping straight to the action and doing more work themselves.

And it seems logical! After all, that’s what worked before, right? That’s what got them promoted. So they have to do it again, but harder! Deliver more code. Finish more tasks. Be the manager and the smartest person in the room.

And usually, they fail.

Why?

Because being a manager is a completely different role. What got you here won’t get you there. Your goals are different. What is expected of you is different. And it’s no longer about you. Now it’s all about your team.

The power of many

There is a limit to what you can do as a single person. You might be an outstanding engineer, but you have just two hands, just one head and just one keyboard. You have to sleep, you have to eat, and optionally maintain personal hygiene.

To deliver more and to make a bigger impact, you need other people. And this is where you have to become a manager.

Ask yourself, what will make a bigger impact? A single person or a team of 5 people?

The answer is clear, right? But it’s not just about the number.

What will make a bigger impact? A focused and efficient team of 3 people, working on a single, well-planned goal or a team of 6, ad-hoc switching between several unconnected topics?

Here precisely lies your goal. This is how you make an impact as a manager. You create and lead high-impact teams.

Easier said than done.

What’s an impact?

In simple terms, the impact is a change. An effect of your work on the company, on the product and the business. Difference between “before” and “after”.

A lot of work is not the same as a big impact. You might deliver one simple feature that perfectly nails the market’s demand and brings a lot of revenue. That’s the high impact. You may also spend months and quarters rewriting your system to a new fancy framework just for the sake of it. That’s the low impact.

Yes, I know it hurts.

The thing that differentiates winners from losers is knowing what to work on to maximise their impact.