Managing for the first time

I remember the very first time when I was promoted internally. At the time I was really excited and finally felt that my time had come. What I overlooked during the process was how was I now going to manage my peers?

When hired externally to manage a team its easier to build relationships in the right way. Everyone is still figuring everyone out, we are all on the same playing field.

Not if you were an IC initially and moved role to a Manager role. You were with everyone else talking about your manager, but now you are the manager. What might be more difficult or worse is that one or two others may well have been applying for the role as well.

So how exactly can you navigate this space? Is there a way to ensure everyone is aligned and knows their role?

Of course there is…and its not doing it the way I did it.

I inherited a high performing team, it was a TA team, that was going above and beyond within the role from exceptional candidate experience but also some great partnership with the business. The team understood their roles and how to work together well.

I now had to manage this team as a first time manager without any training and little guidance. I thought it would be a walk in the park, fix some in-efficient processes but BAU and onto a winner. Boy was I wrong.

I didn’t anticipate:

• People would change how they worked and communicated with me

• I now had to have difficult conversations with people, that were friends

• I had to run performance reviews with friends

• Give difficult feedback to friends

• Have my leadership approach called into question

• Stand up to my decision making

• Navigate aspects of favouritism

These were some of the initial challenges I faced but the other problems that arose were:

• Still operating like an IC

• Not delegating well

• Unable to give feedback

• Poor communication

But I know that I am not alone in experiencing this. I know other managers who have felt something similar when they have been moved internally. My biggest question on this, why does this happen too often?

Everyone in HR / People are fully aware of these challenges and even more experienced managers are and yet companies are not preparing themselves for this move or investing in their future leaders well enough.

Tips for first time manager

Something you shouldn’t do is do what I did and ignore this and carry on as normal.

Here are some tips for helping the team and yourself navigate this change well.

1. Establish Authority: No this doesn’t mean you start throwing around your weight and changing everything. This does mean demonstrating to the team you were the right choice but also you have a new role as their manager. When moving internally this can create some tensions across the team and you need to get ahead of this. Get a meeting with the team communicate your role and responsibilities. Make sure you are clear on boundaries and be approachable.

2. Maintaining Relationships: Your change in role will have a change in how you manage your personal and professional relationships with your former peers. It’s worth speaking with your peers in your 1:1s and be clear on the balance of the new relationship. You will need to ensure that you are fair with all team members and are open and transparent in your approach.

3. Communication: This is going to be the cornerstone of your role but will be vital in the early days of the role. How you communicate and share your vision and your approach is going to be key. Should you not communicate clearly or get meetings setup you will start to lose on trust with your team.

4. Building Trust: When you were an IC you likely had high trust with your peers, now that you have moved role trust is there but in the new role the team will likely need to re-trust you again. The trust here is different this going to be focussed on whether you have their back, when at leadership meetings or you need to defend the team will you have their back etc. They will may well be testing you in the new role and you need to be able to stand your ground and ensure you get their trust.

5. Focus on team dynamics: Something not many new managers do is focussing on the team dynamics. You as the new manager will be doing things differently to your old manager. It is worth looking and discussing with the team on new dynamics. How should meetings be run? What are the ways of working? Most importantly as soon as possible get a team get together with focus on an offsite with an event after. This will help with team building.

Moving into the new role you will likely be having a number of different thoughts and emotions. There is going to be a big focus for you to focus on you. Getting time for you is going to be vital, this will help you to ensure that you can navigate the challenges ahead. This will also help the team and show you leading by example.

The biggest takeaway you should have reading this is the need to communicate and delegate. Doing these parts will help you get the backing and support from your team.

This will take time but hopefully following the above should make things easier for you when working with the team that you were a part of before.

Book Recommendation

This week’s book recommendation is Stephen Covey’s classic The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

For me this a book I keep going back to and has really guided not just my work but also my life. It’s certainly a must read that will give you the the grounding that you need in how well to operate as an individual.

Enjoyed this newsletter?

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Questions?

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