Managing You

As a new manager I remember jumping with excitement (until reality kicked-in) on my new role. I had seen so many bad managers in the past and from learning from these on what not to do. I felt comfortable in what I thought would be a good leader.

This isn’t what I found and I had spent so much time investing in my team and building the relationships with my peers, there was one person I forgot to do anything with.

And that was me.

In today’s newsletter I want to go deep on a skill that is always overlooked by all new managers and old managers alike. Knowing you and bringing that you to your team. We always talk about ensuring that we bring our whole self to work, but what does this mean? If you’ve had huge stress at home should that be brought to the office? Unlikely but we all do it. What impacts us in one sphere has a knock on effect in all other areas.

To ensure that you as a leader are properly set up for success you need to ensure you know you. You need to be able to understand:

• Your stressors

• Your energy givers

• Your values

• Your mission

Without knowing these there is a chance (and a high one) that being an effective leader is going to be a real challenge for you.

Let’s jump in.

Knowing You

It’s very easy for a new leader to jump in and start working on trying to deliver and get results. This is good and bias for action is a good thing. But when stepping up to lead or coming into a leadership role for the first time this will create more work for you than needed.

Unless you spend the time knowing who you are and what your values are leading the team to right outcomes will be a lot harder. When coaching other first time managers I spend most of my time with them looking at who they are and building the right rhythms for them.

Starting to lead starts with you.

As a new or even existing manager that is looking to develop, where do you start with this?

There are some really great free resources out there like strengths finder is a good starting point. But I always recommend stopping and getting some time to think around:

• What you like doing?

• What are you good at?

• What are you not good at?

• What have you heard from consistent feedback?

• What is a potential blind spot that you have heard from feedback?

• What are the values that drive you every day?

Starting by answering these simple questions and you can start to have a high level plan for developing yourself and the values that you live by.

There are a number of great frameworks for you to look at using to help you walk through this, in particular if you haven’t done something like this before.

The three that come to mind would be:

1. SWOT Analysis

2. Johari Window

3. VMV (Vision, Mission and Values)

If you are new to managing I would start with SWOT or Johari window to begin understanding you and how you work in more detail.

SWOT Analysis

Everyone knows about SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats). Most of the time these are applied to business spaces but this can be a great framework when for when looking at yourself too.

Strengths

This is all about identifying your core skills and strengths. Really be clear with what you are good at and how you can bring these skills no-one else has to offer. Get comfortable celebrating you.

Weaknesses

Be honest with yourself in what you are not good at, don’t be focussed on that high level stuff but get really specific. If communication isn’t a something you are good, list it out here. If the task drains you likely is you won’t be that good at it.

Opportunities

Here you want to list out the opportunities for you to lean more into your strengths. How can you bring these to the front more, how can you leverage these further? Don’t forget about looking at ways to develop these skills even further for them to be your superpower.

Threats

This section is all about the external things that is going to impact your performance, what are your stressors? Think through how these affect you at work. Be really honest with these sections, they may well be things at home or with your family but getting them down and being honest about them will help you to begin to think about how to manage these going forward.

Once you have done this analysis get feedback on this. Ask some peers, family and friends to review. Getting their honest opinion means you will be able to see blind spots in you that we all often overlook. Once you have this re-review your document and finalise.

With the final version its worth sharing with your team and covering off more about you. By doing this it will help your team to see how you operate and think. This is really critical when communicating tasks and objectives for the team. If they understand more about you it helps them join you on the journey.

Johari Window

The johari window is a great tool for those looking at self-awareness and developing yourself further as well as communication across teams. Meaning its a great tool to use as a new manager.

Open Area

This is the open area, this is what you know of yourself and what everyone knows about you. This section is where you would cover the key relevant skills that you have and ones that everyone agrees you have.

Blind Spot

This area is known to others but not known to you. I love this tool for new managers as means you need to get feedback and get comfortable handling feedback. With this section connect with your team, peers manager etc to really understand the weakness areas you don’t see. Get into understanding when the stress levels are how and how you operate here too.

Hidden Area

In this section these are the things known to you but not others. What are your stressors? Where do you get most of your energy? What makes you excited etc. This is where you need to be clear with skills and experiences others may well not know about

Unknown

This is where everything is unknown. You don’t know and your colleagues don’t know either. I recommend using this section for developing out new skills you need to learn. What are the opportunities for growth? Where can you continue to develop or learn new skills? Leverage the other sections to really look at developing a plan for you to continue to learn new things or enhance your existing skills.

As a new a manager once you have completed the above continue to re-review through getting feedback and embrace new learning opportunities. Be really clear with your stressors and also what energises you too.

The art of knowing you is all about making sure that you get time to think. Plan in regular times throughout the weeks and months to ensure you are getting time to review and adjust things. As you start to grow you may well want to build out a Vision, Mission and Values statement about you that you can share with the team.

But for now focus on looking at the above which should be a great place to start.

I would love to hear if you applied the above and how you found it?

Book recommendation

Start with why by Simon Sinek 

A worthwhile read that takes a lot of the above into a helping leaders spend time thinking about their why and bringing others on the journey.

I hope you enjoyed this weeks addition, if you have any comments or questions connect with me here.

Until next week

PS I hope you have enjoyed this newsletter, if so and you want some more resources worth checking out my free mini-course here.

PPS ManagerOS intro courses coming soon.