Team Tactics

This article was originally published by The Actuary on 1 June 2023.

Progressing through your actuarial career, you might find yourself given the opportunity to take on a management role. Our actuarial education builds our technical skills but we can find ourselves unprepared for managing people and teams.

When I first took on managerial tasks, I had so many questions. How do I explain a task without micromanaging? How can I ensure high-quality technical work is carried out without doing it myself? And even: who am I to ask someone else to do ‘my work’? Over time, I realised that management skills can be learned and developed, just as we build our technical skills. However, unlike with our technical training, we do not usually have a clearly defined pathway for building these skills. ​​

What can you do to ease the transition to a managerial role? Here, having spoken to three experienced actuarial leaders (Jennifer Lang, Stephen Huppert and Ryan Boyd) and three emerging ones (Laura Zhao, Dan Wang and Desmond Muzorewa), I pull together their advice.

Top tips for new managers

 1. It’s not all about you

A promotion to a managerial role can often feel like an acknowledgment of our good work, and we may feel pressure to demonstrate our capability to our team members. However, great actuarial managers recognise the need to widen their focus.

“It’s not about me, it’s about my team and making sure they can achieve both their development goals and the company’s goals,” says experienced leader Ryan Boyd. “You become not necessarily the person who manages the team but the person who empowers, supports and enables them to achieve their work. You enable them to develop and become ‘the star of their own movie’.”

Takeaway: widen your focus beyond yourself and actively develop your team members

2. Skills need to be learned and practised

You were not born with your technical actuarial skills – you learnt them. The same is true for management and leadership skills.

“Very few people are born managers, born leaders,” says experienced leader Stephen Huppert. “Don’t be fooled. Don’t think, that guy’s just a born manager.”

In my small-group training programme, which helps actuaries step into managerial roles, participants who are already working as managers often express disappointment about not having had the opportunity to build these skills sooner. Aspiring managers can also benefit from learning management skills, so take time to plan tangible actions in advance for creating your own management toolkit.

“Study, absorb, talk to people and work out the best way for you to learn how to do it,” says Stephen. “Some people will read the management books. Others will find courses, others will observe and find mentors and coaches.”

Takeaway: great actuarial managers and leaders are made, not born

3. Give people room to grow

Can you remember the best manager you ever worked for? What made them great? Was it that they regularly showed off their strong technical skills? Probably not – it is more likely that they helped you develop your own skills and career.

As a manager, one of your key objectives is to develop your team members so they can build their skills and add more value to the team. This is often cited by leaders as one of the highlights of a management role but it isn’t always easy to implement.

“It’s satisfying to see people grow and learn over time,” says emerging leader Laura Zhao. “The hardest part is the balance between how much I should tell them versus how much someone should learn themselves. As much as I want to be there and help all the time, it means missed opportunities for them to explore on their own.”

Remember this objective and keep the dialogue open with your team members so that they can develop.

Takeaway: your team members want to build their careers too, so help them grow

4. Check in regularly and ask questions

Finding the right frequency of communication with your team is a common challenge for new actuarial managers. How do you provide enough supervision without micromanaging? It depends on whom you are managing.

“Make sure you’re checking in enough so that they feel they can ask a silly question in a safe place and still make it happen,” says experienced leader Jennifer Lang. “If somebody’s never done something before, they’re going to need more support than if they’ve done it a million times. You can’t delegate everything because you’re going to have to support them, but you can figure out how to gradually build people up.”

Asking your direct reports can help you get the balance right. Emerging leader Dan Wang suggests having a clear conversation with team members and asking them what level of communication they prefer. “It’s just having the conversation with them and asking, ‘How do you want to be managed?’ Be upfront and say: ‘Tell me a little bit about how you want to work and then let’s see how we can make this work for everyone.’”

Laura agrees: “It’s about knowing each other and knowing each other’s style. It’s about regular catch-ups and really checking to see how they are doing.”

Takeaway: communicate openly with your team members to get the right check-in frequency

5. Adopt a delegation mindset

With additional responsibilities, new managers need to find ways to level up their time management skills. Delegation is an important tool but needs to be practised and tailored for different situations.

Jennifer Lang describes her ‘delegation mindset’ as focusing on the tasks where you can make the most difference. “Think: ‘I’ve got 40 hours a week, what should I do with that 40 hours?’ Rather than, ‘I’ve got all these things to do, how do I fit them in?’ I might be better than other people at a bunch of things but what are the things that only I can do? And what are the things that they can do? Maybe they can’t do it as well as I can right now but they probably will be able to if I delegate it to them.”

It can be tempting to keep doing tasks that you can do faster or more accurately than your team members but it is important to consider whether that is the best use of your time or the best way to develop them.

Takeaway: identify where you can make the most impact and delegate other tasks

Opening new doors

Many actuaries find that the transition to their first management role involves new challenges. We can ease this transition by focusing on our team (not just ourselves), taking the time and effort to actively build management skills, giving people room to grow through open communication, and adopting a delegation mindset. As emerging leader Desmond says: “We need to be brave. Take that little bit of risk to jump into that leadership role and explore the world of opportunities that are there for the actuarial skillset.”

Stepping into your first management role might not be easy but if you take the leap and are open to learning the ropes, it can open new doors and exciting opportunities – accelerating your career and personal growth.