Look around you, and you’ll see that your front-line managers are accountable for the lion’s share of people managing in your organization. Whether you call them supervisor or manager, these individuals are responsible for the teams delivering customer support, technical services, operations, sales, and many other functions across the enterprise. These roles are also training grounds for your first-time managers. It is imperative you invest the time and energy in helping your first-time manager start-up successfully. The cost of not doing this is higher than you want to pay.
Almost Accidental First-Time-Managers:
Most firms are less than deliberate in their identification of first-time managers.
Typically, an experienced manager has tagged one or two individuals with the label, “managerial potential,” based on an assessment of their work, character, and interactions. When a position opens up, there’s an on-the-spot promotion, maybe a few days of training and the new manager is set loose to protect the realm and keep it running.
Wide-Eyed, Eager, and Out-of-Their Element:
I love the enthusiasm displayed by first-time managers. It’s a testament to their prior work and potential, and most are eager to show everyone what they can do. Unfortunately, many aren’t certain exactly what it is they should do. All that energy has to go somewhere, and frequently, it misfires in the form of over-managing, micro-managing, or facilitating a full function makeover, where one was not needed. Arming your first-timer with clear context and a start-up plan is essential for capturing this great energy and directing it for good instead of evil.
It is imperative you invest the time and energy in helping your first-time manager start-up successfully. The cost of not doing this is higher than you want to pay. Click To TweetArm Your First-Time Manager with Clear Context for the Role:
A start-up is a horrible thing to waste, so don’t do it.
- Invest time in acclimating your first-time manager to her new role. Provide guidance on how her team impacts unit or department goals.
- Describe the metrics her team is accountable for, and share where you perceive improvements are needed.
- Be clear on whether the new manager’s purpose is to step in and keep things moving while improving incrementally over time, or, whether you are asking her to reinvent the team and function.
- Importantly, clarify how you will be observing and evaluating her during her start-up phase.
Emphasize the Need to Be Laser Focused on Customers:
While many first-timers are drawn from within the team (another challenge you need to help her navigate), it is imperative that you reiterate the importance of customer focus. It’s easy for first-time managers to shift their focus inward and lock-it-in on the team members, reports, and processes, and lose track of their real purpose to delight customers.
Teach the First-Time-Manager What it Means to Have Stakeholders:
Even if the first-timer gets the customer part right, no team or function in an organization is an island. That’s code for the reality that there are other internal customers or stakeholders who interact with or are dependent on your new manager’s people, inputs, and outputs.
Work with the new manager to map out the key stakeholders and describe the dependencies and accountabilities. Facilitate introduction to these stakeholders as part of the onboarding process.
Provide Tough Love on the Move from Team Member to Boss:
One of the more disorienting elements of stepping into a first-time manager’s role is navigating the move from one of the gang to the manager of the gang. You leave Friday a team member and show up Monday, and everything is different.
Instead of letting your first-timer flail through this process, set the stage before the promotion.
Reiterate the reality that the nature of the relationships must change. Workplace friendships are important, but the new job demands an unyielding commitment to the best interests of the company.
Ideally, discuss this reality in detail ahead of the promotion and strive to assess whether the individual can navigate the transition. Once the promotion is in place, watch carefully, provide coaching and counseling on this sticky issue.
Stay Involved!
I’ve lost track of how many professionals describe their initiation into management as one of sink or swim. It’s never the right approach.
Build time in your calendar for observing your new manager in various situations. Take advantage of unscheduled time to do fly-by’s and observe spontaneously. Take notes and discuss your observations and carry on a dialog over ideas for improvement or strengthening.
Provide ample positive feedback as well as the constructive.
Coach!
Involvement, feedback, and coaching are intrinsically linked. One of the reasons for frequent first-time manager burnout is the lack of involvement and the lack of coaching. Remember, your best superstar as an individual contributor is a neophyte when it comes to getting work done through others.
The basis of coaching is frequent observation and regular dialog around areas to strengthen, change, or eliminate. Lock time on your weekly calendar for coaching during the first 100 days of your new manager’s start-up, and don’t be afraid to offer real-time input as called for in the course of a day.
The Bottom-Line for Now:
Every first-time manager is an emerging leader in your organization. You can ill afford to have your first-timers struggle or fail, particularly given the importance of their team’s work in keeping your organization running. Make deliberate development of your first-time manager a core part of your daily and weekly work, and you will be pleasantly surprised with the results.
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