It’s well-known that most of us believe we’re above average drivers… So, I expected that we’d also have inflated views of our own management & leadership skills. But, I didn’t expect the gap to be as big as our polls indicate! 

Sadly some managers have never had training on what great management looks like, instead attempting to learn by observing their own managers, perhaps combined with some trial-and-error. So sorry if you were one of the guinea-pigs who experienced failed experiments! Combine that possible lack of training with our inherent self-belief as ambitious people, and no wonder we’re not as good as we think we are! 

A leader recently told me that part of his role as a line manager is to be a 'Career Logistics Officer' for those in his team, and I agree. A fundamental element of managing or leading others is developing them and their careers – and, is a key part of what we help with at Protagion. 

So, it seemed natural to ask our followers on LinkedIn to hear their thoughts on this topic. We ran two polls. The first was aimed at leaders and managers, both those relatively new to managing others, and those more seasoned at it. It asked them to rate themselves on their skills in developing the careers of their team members. The second was aimed at employees looking to give their managers some anonymous collective feedback, and we asked ‘How good is your direct manager at helping you develop your career?’. In both polls, the options were:
    • A+ (or A* to our UK readers)
    • A
    • C
    • F (or U to our UK readers)

The Results
Around 70% of managers/leaders rated themselves as A+ or A i.e. exceptional or very good at developing the careers of their people. This was about 30% more than the proportion of employees who assessed their manager/leader at the same level – in fact, the gap at ‘fail’ level between their perspectives was also about 30%, implying that 3 in 10 employees have managers who they believe fail at developing their careers, while the managers themselves think they’re great. WOW! 

And, yes, these results aren’t scientifically rigorous. There are definitely selection effects at play i.e. who chose to respond, and perhaps, just perhaps, all the self-identified failing managers have bigger teams?!… But, they do offer interesting food for thought. 

So, what can you as a manager/leader do to improve your people’s experience of your skills? 

Tips & further resources for you
If you want to become a better leader or manager, three tips for you:
1) Talk with your team members, understand what’s important to them, and ask them how you can help them to bring their best to the team
2) Work with a leadership coach (such as those available at Protagion) – they’re trained to support you to build your leadership skills
3) Practice different styles and techniques in real settings to assess whether they feel authentic to you, and what their impact on others is, keeping those that work for you and them 

And, for those of you interested in reading further about this topic, we have lots of resources for you at Protagion, like these:

• Advice for Aspiring Leaders
• Managing Others: Concepts from Sports, and Enhancing your Skills
• Conversations of a 'Brilliant Manager': Advice for New or Aspiring Managers
• Encouraging Career Development as a Manager: a ‘Brilliant Manager’ Conversation
• The Micromanagement Menace: Causes and Tips for Employees and Managers 
• Real-life example: talented superstars vs bureaucracy & lacklustre colleagues 
• Persuasion vs Manipulation and their role in encouraging change
• Celebrating our Humanness (on managing change)
• Leading in a Collaborative World
• How can leaders ignite the best thinking in others?

Remember too that management & leadership skills are not only about reading the material or attending the training course. You must put them into regular practice in order to improve: action is fundamental! 

As we have a growing number of proteges who work in data and analytics roles, including quants, actuaries, engineers and others, this post explores some of the types of roles which exist in data science and analytics. Given the speed at which the analytics landscape and the technology used are evolving, it changes significantly over time, so please don’t treat these example roles as static or exhaustive. In fact, this ongoing evolution is one of the exciting aspects of such work: the opportunity to spot gaps and propose innovative ways to do things in future, including crafting your own role and career path.

More senior data and analytics professionals may also appreciate our long Routes to the Top article on C-suite roles like Chief Data Officer, Chief Analytics Officer and Chief Data & Analytics Officer.

Data and analytics roles have to some extent exploded because of the rapid evolution of technology, although they also incorporate strong statistics skills, and some feel that domain knowledge of an industry or industries is also helpful. With this in mind, here are some examples of roles:

Data Scouts

• These individuals focus on sourcing data, managing the full data acquisition lifecycle
• They bring new and interesting data sets from the wider world into a business for review (and ideally application to project(s))
• Also known as data sourcing and strategy roles

Data Scientists or Data Analysts

• They turn raw, unstructured data into ‘insights’, often using programming skills to do so
• They work closely with the business units and teams who rely on their insights as well as work with the technologists to introduce different analytics tools (from rules-based approaches to complex machine learning models)
  
• Computer Science PhDs or advanced degrees in similar subjects can be helpful e.g. statistics, science or financial mathematics in order to apply rigorous analytical skills to evaluate and experiment
  
• Their ability to process unstructured and/or large volumes of data, telling good stories based on their analysis, is important e.g. through the creation of dashboards of metrics and reports on trends

Data Engineering​

• These engineers are technologists often trained in computer science
  
• Their main role is to build and maintain the data platform infrastructure so that data gets to the analysts as efficiently as possible – this includes how data comes in, gets processed, and becomes available for use (in a data warehouse, for example)

Data Management

• These people are responsible for the production aspects of data, including data tagging and metadata 
• Managing the security of the central master data is crucial too, as is quality assurance and related data management tools

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Some of these roles might be done by the same person. There are also other related roles beyond these, such as experts in visualisation i.e. telling graphical stories with the data so that it supports the decisions being recommended. 

We end with memorable day-at-the-beach descriptions of three data roles, courtesy of Stonefield Advisory, a UK-based data analysis & financial modelling company:

• Database Administrator aka DBA (within the Data Management group earlier), who "loves sand"
• Data Engineer, who "loves fetching sand"
• Data Analyst, who "loves building things with sand"