Here are 25 tips for new managers:
- Ask yourself better questions. Your brain is like a computer or Google and will find answers to whatever questions you ask. So, make sure you ask powerful and helpful questions instead of unhelpful ones and find answers you are not looking for.
- Get a mentor. Learn from the people that have gone before you and if you can’t afford it yet, start by reading books and using the authors as mentors. Here is a list of the top 3 books everyone should lead before they become a manager.
- Develop your emotional intelligence. This is one of the most important skills for a manager and is not often discussed. It is important for a manager to be aware of their own emotions but also for them to be aware of the emotions of those around them. A good way to develop your emotional intelligence is to start developing your emotional vocabulary by naming the emotions you regularly feel.
- Remember that you still have to output your own work while also juggling your manager duties as well. This calls for using your time wisely and making sure you take time to plan and organize.
- Use your calendar for meetings. This is important so people who need to interact with you can tell when you are in a meeting and when you are available.
- Use results planning. Results planning is planning for the result you will have accomplished by your deadline instead of doing the thing.
- Learn how to process your negative emotions. Many negative emotions will come up during your time as a new manager. It is important to know that nothing has gone wrong, it is normal to experience negative emotions, and those that went before you also had negative emotions and how to process them so that they don’t interfere with your productivity or your ability to lead. This blog post can teach you how to process negative emotions.
- Learn the difference between accountability and responsibility. The difference differentiates between what you are responsible for and what the people you manage are responsible for. You have to take responsibility for your results and what you produce. Other people are responsible for their own results and outputs, but as a manager, you will need to hold people accountable.
- Know that other people have agency. Like you have the agency to think, feel and do whatever you want, so do other people. By reminding yourself of this, you can avoid micromanaging and trying to control other people and focus more on how you want to show up.
- Take time to learn and integrate into the company’s culture. This is something that you will want to make sure that the other people around you do as well. Culture plays a large part in how decisions are made and is hard to change. A lack of conformity with a workplace culture is often one of the transition traps of new leaders, so make sure you observe, learn and take your time before making any dramatic changes.
- Learn the purpose of a one-on-one. Many people use one-on-one meetings just as status updates and don’t take the opportunity to talk about skills and career development. Learning how to run a one-on-one effectively is one of the most valuable skills a new manager can have.
- Think about the vision for your team. Since you are now the manager, you need to spend more time focusing on the long-term vision of what your team produces and defining what is and isn’t important.
- Become comfortable with measuring your progress by measuring other people’s output and less so your own. As a manager, you will have less individual output. So you will have to get comfortable with delaying the instant gratification that comes from getting something done. If you want more help with this, check out my free guide, 3 Ways to Feel Less Overwhelmed at Work.
- Find a way to capture new information that comes your way. As a manager, you will essentially act as an inbox for all directives and requests for your team; you need to find a way to manage this so that things don’t get lost and so you have a way of organizing all the information your way.
- Build supportive alliances in your company. The higher you rise in a company, the more you will need to rely on influence to push your agenda forward. It is important to start building alliances now. It is also important to build alliances as a new manager because, at some point, you may need to call on your peers-don’t make the mistake of only focusing on those directly above and below you.
- Learn how to be decisive but judicious. As a manager, you will make many more decisions than when you were an individual contributor. You need to be able to make effective decisions for the company. Learn when to make a decision yourself, when to escalate the decision to your boss and what decisions you can give to your direct reports.
- Learn how to become an active listener. As a manager, you are dealing with people. This may be a stark contrast to the role you had as an individual contributor. Make sure you listen to what people are telling you and understand what they are trying to convey. This helps build trust with others, helps you get accurate information, and can be the start of solving problems.
- Take time to learn before making big changes, especially structural changes. Don’t make the mistake of changing everything all at once. Take your time to learn why things operate the way they do before trying to make big, sweeping changes.
- Use your authority judiciously. You do not want to use your authority position unless you have to. Remember, the goal of a manager is to help a team accomplish its goals, and a large part of that is developing a working relationship.
- Be a proactive communicator. Communicate often and frequently instead of just when asked. This skill can be improved if it is something that you don’t feel confident in yet.
- Give feedback consistently and early, good and bad. You want your direct reports to succeed and do a good job. To that end, you must tell them what you want, what you expect, what is going well, and what needs to be improved upon.
- You must be forward-thinking. Managers are forward-thinking. They think more in long-term units such as year to year or month to month. This is a transition you must make when you go from an individual contributor to a manager.
- People want to be led. Show up as a leader that you would be proud to follow.
- Be curious instead of judgmental. Whenever you notice yourself becoming judgmental of someone or their behavior, turn your judgment into curiosity instead. Ask, ‘I wonder why she would make that choice?’ from a real place rather than judge.
- Be on time for your meetings. This one should be obvious, but I think it is still important to mention. Also, show up to your meetings.