A great insight from Tom Critchlow: when you’re mid-career, neither at the top nor the bottom of organisations, many of your struggles come from a lack of context. You know enough to benefit from that context, but you aren’t in a position in the organisation where you – or even the people who are assigning you work – have it.
“As someone who gets given a request from someone more senior - it’s crucial to remember that the more context you are given, the better your work will be.
“Asking for context is being good at your job, not being needy and ineffective.
“And said another way, if you’re managing people you should be providing as much context as you can:
“Providing context makes you a good manager, it’s not micromanaging.”