I manage people in my day job.

As a manager, my goal is to support my team to do their job autonomously and to a high standard.

Whenever I review the performance of my team members, I'm always thinking "Can they think and work independently?".

This is a really important pre-requisite skill to progress into management.

Most team members go through the same journey, which is:

1. Tell me what to do...
2. I think that...
3. I recommend that...
4. I am about to...
5. I just did...
6. I've been doing...

As a team member, it's fine to start by asking what to do but you should set a personal goal to move up to levels 5 and 6 as fast as possible.

There are two main attributes that you need in order to get there:

• Competence: You need to understand your role, organization, and function.
• Confidence: You need to be self-assured enough to make recommendations and decisions.

In my experience, it's the confidence that holds people back.