Hello! I'm Mike

Welcome! This is a quick overview of what you can expect from me as a manager; how I think about management & work, general logistical stuff, and some random stuff about me.

This is not a full step-by-step of how I work and how to work with me; that's constantly evolving (and different for each working relationship I have). This is a quick start guide on the basics.

The most important thing to know about the way I run teams is this: my job is to enable everyone in my team to (1) be successful and happy, and (2) be successful in the same direction. Those are not always easy things to accomplish; but they are the ones that matter.

On Management

Some details on how I think about management, in vague order:

I tend to give my people a lot of freedom; that freedom comes with responsibility. I expect you to function without me. (Understanding, of course, that more senior people get a lot more rope.) You are here to do good work. I am here to enable you, and make sure your work fits our overall team & company goals.

As a corollary to above, if you're about to do something that you are unsure about, and you can't contact me or another person on the team to run it by, just use your best judgement and make the call. I will never criticize you for that.
1:1s are your time to talk to me about whatever is on your mind. Seriously, whatever you want to talk about is game. I try to have 30 minutes each week with each person on the team, and more than that for new members of the team &/or folks that are remote. 1:1s are a priority; I may ask to move them around, but I only cancel if one of us is on PTO.
Feedback is something that (right now) I'm working at getting better at doing regularly. In an ideal world you would be getting small feedback regularly on what you are doing well and what didn't go so well (& what we can do to improve). I value both equally--seriously, "bad" feedback isn't a formal performance review, it's just a "how can we do this better next time" conversation.

I'll always ask you if you are in a headspace to get feedback, both positive and negative. Feel free to turn me down and delay--sometimes you're heads down on a project and don't want the interruption, sometimes life just sucks and it's a really bad time for "bad" feedback.

Assuming I've done feedback right, your performance review shouldn't be a surprise.

(I'm not great at doing small, regular "good job!" feedback. That's on me to improve.)
Career pathing is having a discussion with you regularly on where you are professionally, where you want to be, and what I can do to help you get there. We should have these talks at least once a quarter; I can have them more often (and informally) if you want.
Soft skills are at least as important as domain skills in any job; I would argue that they are critical for security team members. Our voices in any conversation come with a lot of weight because of our roles, and if we abuse that power we'll lose overall influence fast. Aka: you are speaking for all of us, don't be a jerk. In fact ...
Don't Be A Jerk. ~~Jerks will get the axe.~~ Jerk-ness will receive strong feedback that hopefully leads to behavior change.

(Note: Standing up for yourself is not being a jerk. Delivering a strong opinion politely is not being a jerk. Delivering a strong opinion rudely is.)
Burnout is bad mkay. Burnout is a thing. I don't want that. You don't want that. So let's not do that.

Please, work a 40 hour week, take the time off you need to recharge, and don't work more than a 45-50 hour week without telling me (I'll probably tell you to take a long weekend or something). We have unlimited PTO. I don't track time off for myself or any of my reports, other than to urge everyone to take at least 3-4 weeks off a year.

There's a lot of business-sponsored research out there indicating that people's overall productivity goes way down when they work more than 40 hours per week. You can borrow from the future to get work done now, but if you don't recover from it you and your work will suffer.

My Logistics

Hours: You can count on me being at my desk between 10am & 4pm (CT) five days a week. I will usually start earlier and/or go later, but I'll almost always be in during those times. I don't particularly care when you work so long as your regular work hours don't interfere with you getting your work done.
Time off: I will tell you as soon as I know when I'll be taking time off. I hope you'll do the same.
Flextime: You don't need to tell me (much less get my approval) if you're taking flextime (e.g. doctor's visits, long lunch with friends, etc.). Just update your Slack status and do it.
Heads down time: My calendar tends to be busy, and yet I usually need some amount of time to dive into heads-down work. So I usually set appointments for myself for "heads down" time, usually in the mornings when I'm fresh. All I ask is that you ask before you schedule me for something then.
Contacting me: When I'm at my desk, Slack is the best way to ping me. I may not respond immediately, but I will usually respond in the next hour or so. Email is secondary, I usually check it twice a day. When I'm away (either because of a conference, or after hours), Slack works, but send me a text message or just call me if it's critical. If I'll be AFK for more than a day, I'll let everyone know in as many ways as I can as early as I can.
Yes, I'm an introvert. I like people. But I can sometimes hit my limit (it's very high), and will just quietly go away to recharge. You probably won't see this anytime other than at a conference.

The bad & the ugly

Everyone has shitty days sometimes; I'm no exception. On those days, my failure state usually shows as extreme introversion and moderate crankiness (my partner says you'll recognize my crankiness when I'm terse, to the point, and have a very flat affect). If we are working together that day, I'll try to let you know. I also try to not make decisions that day, because I just want to burn the world down.
I try to stay organized, but things slip. If you need me for something don't hesitate to ask again. But remember, insanity is doing the same thing many times and expecting different results. If Slack doesn't work, set a meeting, or call, or sms, or send me a singing telegram, or ... (you get the gist).
Pet peeves:
1. Rudeness.
2. Not telling me when you've made a mistake (we all make them; but I can't help you deal with a problem I don't know about).
3. Failing to help others when it's not a burden to you. I get not lending a hand when it impacts other things, but not helping others for no good reason is annoying.
4. "Utilize." The word is pointless. Just use "use".

What I want to know about you

When we get started (probably at our first meeting) I'll want to know:

What you want to be doing. What gets you engaged? Excited to work?
How you take feedback, privately and publicly, good and bad.
What the worst manager you've had did that really sucked.
How you work. (Hours, contacts, etc.)
Your pet peeves.

On an ongoing basis, I'm going to ask:

If what you are doing is engaging you.
What your overall status is. Stressed? Underworked?

Random stuff about me that aren't work related