I'm not trying to blame anyone and I have nothing against inexperienced people. I'm quite happy with the people I've managed in the past, most of whom have been fairly inexperienced. They were generally better employees than I was a manager [1].
There is a difference between nurturing and handholding. Nurturing is opening the door for them, handholding is pushing them through it.
A concrete example. I had a young college kid put in charge of a bunch of mechanical turks, most of whom were considerably older and more experienced than her. Her first few days of the job were rough - the older girls thought they deserved the job and gave her pushback and I was also unintentionally undermining her. Nurturing her involved asking what she needed, redirecting all work queries to her, and building a report to let her change the business process (she switched from time tracking to goal tracking).
Nurturing was simply telling her underlings "ask little boss lady" when they came to me and then going back to coding. That's exactly what she asked me to do. Handholding would have involved "hey everyone, I need you all to be nice to little boss lady and if you aren't I'm going to yell at you."
(Incidentally, if anyone needs a great manager in Mumbai, let me know. I think she's on the market.)
[1] I failed to protect the people below me from the people above me and I can't blame that on anyone else.
There is a difference between nurturing and handholding. Nurturing is opening the door for them, handholding is pushing them through it.
A concrete example. I had a young college kid put in charge of a bunch of mechanical turks, most of whom were considerably older and more experienced than her. Her first few days of the job were rough - the older girls thought they deserved the job and gave her pushback and I was also unintentionally undermining her. Nurturing her involved asking what she needed, redirecting all work queries to her, and building a report to let her change the business process (she switched from time tracking to goal tracking).
Nurturing was simply telling her underlings "ask little boss lady" when they came to me and then going back to coding. That's exactly what she asked me to do. Handholding would have involved "hey everyone, I need you all to be nice to little boss lady and if you aren't I'm going to yell at you."
(Incidentally, if anyone needs a great manager in Mumbai, let me know. I think she's on the market.)
[1] I failed to protect the people below me from the people above me and I can't blame that on anyone else.