The next time I start a new position, the first thing I'm going to do is figure out how much and what kind of contact my supervisor would like with me.
In my experience as both a worker and a supervisor, everyone is different. I've worked for folks who wanted to micromanage and had to be CCed on every email I sent. On the other end of the spectrum, as a supervisor, I prefer employees to give me a final recommendation with a summary of how they got to that point.
Recently, I've worked with a young fella who wanted to give me updates everyday he worked on a project. For me that's unnecessary. I delegate tasks so that I don't have to be involved in them. Receiving details throughout the process leaves me feeling I am so involved, I should have just done the task myself.
With the newest generation of workers (the millennials), saying I don't want detailed updates isn't enough. Categorically, millennials want A LOT of feedback and interaction. So when I'm supervising these young folks, I've found that my mode of operation is so different from theirs, I need to keep reminding them to spare me the play-by-play. To meet them halfway, I've found I need to build in time to give them some amount of feedback with every meeting.
The truth is that many employees and supervisors don't realize that their particular working style is not universal. The faster the pair can acknowledge each individuals' working style and set expectations for the working relationship the more functional and less frustrating the relationship will be—at least I expect that's the case... I'll let you know.
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