Goldman Sachs’ HR head says managers should get to know their team

Know
what makes them tick.

Strelka
Institute for Media, Architecture and
Design/flickr

• Goldman
  Sachs‘ human resources head Sally Boyle shared her best
  advice for managers.
• According to Boyle, managers should get to know their
  employees, including their strengths, weaknesses, and work
  preferences.
• This can be harder than it sounds, since every employee
  is different.

Sally Boyle attributes much of her career success to having some
“fantastic” managers. “They knew to spend time with me,
understanding what would really light my fire and what would make
me succeed.”

Boyle is now the international head of human capital management
at Goldman Sachs, and she shared this observation recently during
a discussion on
inclusion and diversity, part of the company’s global speaker
series.

Boyle’s best advice for managers is based on her own experience.

“The best way to be inclusive is to really know your people,” she
said, “to know every single person that works for you and know
what makes them tick, what opportunities they might want, what
they need to get better at, what feedback they need to have.”

To be sure, this is much harder than it sounds. As Boyle said,
leadership is “about acknowledging that every single person in
this organization is different. But as a manager, you need to
understand those differences.”

That is to say, there’s no such thing as a universally effective
management style — it depends on who you’re working with.

The process of getting to know your employees should start as
soon as they join your team (or you join theirs). Over on

Fast Company, Ximena Vengoechea shared some potential
questions that will help you better understand your direct
reports. For example: “What experiences make you happy at work?”
and “How transparent do you prefer managers to be?”

And on
The Muse, Avery Augustine recommends joining a group project
so you can learn about your employees’ different working styles
and personalities.

Once you’ve gotten a sense of each person’s strengths,
weaknesses, and preferences, Boyle said, “work with each
individual to make sure that they get to do what they want and
they get the right help and feedback to succeed.”

Get the latest Goldman Sachs stock price here.