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Assuming a management role is an exciting yet challenging professional transition that requires new skills and entails a lot of learning. In this article, we’ll give you some guidance and insight into your new manager position. We’ll explore the opportunities this new role can bring you and provide you with practical suggestions you can implement to help you succeed in your endeavor.
Becoming a manager: Opportunities and anxieties
Stepping into a managerial role is a professional goal many dreams of and work toward. However, this exciting transition can also come with nerves as you contemplate the challenges of leading a team. Being an accomplished individual contributor to a team doesn’t necessarily translate into successful leadership.
Here are examples of common challenges that new managers are likely to face.
Common challenges for new managers
- Shifting to a supervisor relationship with team members. You may find it challenging to change from being a peer with your team member to a supervisor. As a peer, your relationships with other team members were probably much more personal, developing into workplace friendships. However, as a manager, you have to treat everyone the same, so you can’t develop the same types of friendships as before. Your interactions now have to be much more professional.
- Managing conflict within the team. A big part of your new role in resolving disputes between members of your team. The trick is to be proactive and straighten out smaller issues right away before they turn into larger conflicts. One way of doing this is by making the environment comfortable enough that team members feel they can go to you with any issues. This might mean checking in with everyone regularly or leaving room in your calendar for impromptu one-on-one meetings.
- Feeling imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is when you don’t feel smart, good, or competent enough, which leads to feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. Combat imposter syndrome by taking time to recognize your achievements—the contributions you made and the work ethic you embodied to get the promotion. It will take time to develop the skills needed in your new role, so, while it’s natural to second-guess yourself, don’t let it derail your growth.
- Managing team members’ performance. As a new manager, you may feel uncomfortable giving co-workers who used to be your peer’s feedback about their performance. You may also feel conflicted when dealing with a team member’s inability to complete assigned tasks on time or at all. In this regard, you need to hold team members accountable for their actions while looking for ways to understand what motivates them and encourage them to excel.
6 tips new managers need to succeed
As you settle into your new role, give yourself some time to learn how to be an effective manager, delegate, and inspire your team. There is a learning curve, and, as you go through it, you’ll build confidence. Here are tips to succeed in a leadership role.
1. Communicate … a lot
Whether you’ve been promoted from within or are coming in as a new team member, you need to build rapport with others. Knowing how your team members and other managers work and understanding what makes them tick will help you guide your team with empathy and compassion.
Communicating frequently can be especially challenging when leading remote teams, so here are a few actions you can take to ensure all workers, regardless of location, feel included:
- Hold regular team meetings. This is particularly important for remote or hybrid teams working from different time zones or hours of the day. It facilitates the connection between team members while giving you time to check in with each member.
- Develop a communications policy for your team. Establish specific communication channels for your team if your organization does not have one. Open communication may be easier to achieve, especially for remote teams, if you have guidelines for using email (e.g., policies for when to forward or copy other members or parties). Your communications policy may also cover rules for text messaging, voicemails, instant messaging, and video conferencing.
- Share information. Choose to be transparent with your team about company decisions and actions, especially ones that could directly impact them.
Don’t confuse open communication with gossip, though. You still have to remain professional with every person on your team, even if you know someone on a personal level. And you have to nip gossip in the bud if you get wind of it.
Having open communication also doesn’t mean confiding in your subordinates about your new job’s difficulties and struggles, or sensitive matters. Your team members are looking for you to lead, mentor, and inspire them.
A better way to manage the stress and challenges of your new role is to find a mentor you can confide in and who can give you advice and constructive feedback about your leadership skills.
2. Meet team members individually and often
Make time to meet with team members individually. If your only interaction with your team is when you’re assigning tasks or asking for updates, you’re not building rapport and trust.
Get to know each member’s professional goals, strengths, likes, and dislikes. This will give you valuable insight into how you can best support them and where they can make the greatest contributions to the team. These one-on-one meetings help you build a working relationship with each team member, so you’re better able to give or receive feedback and bring up and resolve issues.
3. Provide the structure for individual success
Just like you set yourself up for success through training and skills development, your job is to make sure team members have the skills and resources they need to excel in their roles. Here are some ways you can help your team work smoothly:
- Provide as much information as you can and set clear expectations. Give straightforward directions, and let your team know how their assignments fit into a project’s overall completion and success. People like to know how their contribution helped achieve a goal.
- Support and encourage team members to develop skills. Your team’s success is your success. It’s important that you not only perform reviews for full-time employees and detailed feedback for independent professionals; you should also have actionable advice for how each member can improve and grow. Avoid giving general praise or criticism since, which doesn’t provide any practical benefit. Focus instead on giving your members mentorship or coaching.
4. Resist the urge to micromanage
Prioritize productivity over when your team members log in and out. Focus on the big picture—is the work up to par and done on time? Your job is to lead your team toward completing a project or goal, not to monitor their every move.
Here are some questions you can use to avoid micromanaging:
- Are you modeling desired actions and inspiring your team, or are you leading through control?
- Are you letting your team learn by experience, or do you criticize and punish any deviation from “your way” of doing things?
- Do you ask for input and guide your team to a solution, or do you dictate what you think is best?
- Are you open to innovation and willing to explore new ideas, or do you insist on doing things the way they’ve always been done?
5. Balance flexibility and consistency
As you get to know your team members, you’ll understand how they work and you’ll learn about any circumstances or issues they need extra support with. However, you have to be careful that flexibility doesn’t become synonymous with a lax attitude or work ethic. Let team members know what is expected of them.
Here are a few things you can do to provide support and prevent burnout for your team. This is especially important for people working remotely and possibly juggling their work and personal life.
- Talk about the importance of mental health often. Check-in regularly with your team to see how they’re doing and show that you’re available to listen. Ask them what they need and offer to help where you can.
- Model a rest and recharge day. With most people working remotely, it can seem like there’s no separation between work and home anymore. Encourage your members to take time off and model it if necessary.
- Allow flexible scheduling. If your team consists of both full-time workers and independent professionals, you must allow some flexibility regarding scheduling. As long as the work is getting done and team members can easily communicate with each other, it shouldn’t matter that one worker prefers to work toward the evening and another is an early bird.
6. Protect your team
Your team’s success or failure falls on your shoulders and your ability to lead. It’s your responsibility to make sure your team won’t be run down by too much work or pushed around by other groups to do more than the scope of their assignments.
Stand up for your team. Share their successes and recognize their efforts. Most importantly, don’t throw them under the bus when things aren’t going well.
Find talent that makes management easy
Stepping into a new role may have you second-guessing yourself at times. As long as you’re committed to learning and developing the skill set you need to be a good manager, however, you’re allowed to make a mistake or two.
