One of the new(er) managers’ most significant mistakes is thinking and acting as if their role is mostly about showing they are super contributors. I run into this regularly with smart people—experts in their field—who assume their primary job is to be that expert on steroids, telling their team members how to do everything just as they would.

The pressure for and tolerance of this Do-as-I-Would approach to management comes from promoting managers—often new managers of managers themselves—who put good people in this awkward job without truly understanding how to guide and coach them. Everyone is under pressure to deliver results. Feeling the pressure, the new manager quickly defaults to what has worked for them and starts telling everyone how to do something. The promoting manager naively assumes the new manager knows what they are doing.

This Do-as-I-Would style of managing ignores some of the foundational essentials of effective management. At a high level, every manager must address these key issues:

1. Building the culture

The manager’s role is much about building the culture—what I refer to as the working environment for diverse groups of individuals to excel. To do that, managers, regardless of level or experience, must focus on gaining clarity on what their team members need from them, ensuring a living, breathing set of group rules for success is present and reinforced, and meeting the needs of team members for context, connection, communication, career growth, coaching, and others.

2. Supporting people in areas that matter to them

As my friend Julie Winkle Giulioni explains in her excellent book Promotions are So Yesterday (and supporting research), people value at least eight dimensions in their work and career growth. Simply imposing “Do-it-as-I-Would” management on team members fails to address areas people value in their work.

3. Embracing the role of teacher, not teller

The best managers are teachers, a key responsibility in approximately zero HR-produced job descriptions I’ve encountered. The art of teaching is where a recently successful contributor (new manager) can leverage their expertise. The challenge is to go beyond telling people how to do things and help them explore, experiment, and learn as they go.
If I could rename the moniker manager, “Teacher” would be among my top three choices. (Coacher and Empowerer are the other two.)

Essential Actions for New Managers at Start-Up

Ask your team members what they need from you as their manager

Work with your manager to ensure you understand what the group is expected to deliver, and share this vital context with your team members. Then, work with your team members to identify (together) the best ways to fulfill upper management’s expectations for results.

Ask your team members what their ideal working environment looks like.

You can explore this with groups by facilitating a Rules-for-Success process in which each member describes how they want to work, problem-solve, collaborate, disagree, resolve, and support each other. Through your daily observation and coaching, bring their Rules-for-Success to life.

Tailor your communication approach to each person

Don’t assume your open-door policy is all you need regarding communication. Be more dynamic. Ask team members about their communication preferences, share yours, and give them the agency to define what they want to cover in your one-on-one sessions.

Observe and talk

Watch your team members in action. Provide quality feedback promptly, but stop short of telling them what they need to change. Focus on the behavior you observed and its impact on performance. Explore together ways to strengthen this behavior in the future.

The Bottom Line for Now:

If you’re new(er) to the manager role, drop the Do-as-I-Would style and develop your unique style built around teaching and collaborating with your team members. Giving agency is a powerful tool for motivating people. Your goal isn’t to create a group of clones but to help individuals develop their distinct approaches, many of which will be better than your style. The proof point for your success as a manager is when they start generating great results at levels you might have yet to achieve.

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