Having The Proper Mentality For Manager 1 on 1s

• Your manager is a resource for you.
• Don't just see your manager as a source of authority that gives you work. While this is true to some extent, having this mentality really holds back your growth.
• Go into your manager 1 on 1s with a plan on how you can extract the most value from them.
  • This onus is on you to set the agenda for this meeting, so you can get insights from your manager on how to best improve yourself. Let them know about this agenda beforehand, so they can think about how to best help you with each point.
  • Another way of seeing this is how can you make your manager's life easier. By setting the stage for your manager, you lower the barrier for them helping you as they don't need to figure out exactly what your work life looks like and what problems you have.
• A common failure mode for earlier-in-career engineers going into manager 1 on 1s is they go in, give a status update on what they're doing, and wait for more work to be given to them.

Related resources:

• Full In-Depth Session On Impactful 1:1 Meetings
• Effective Communication Guide