As a first-time manager, you may find yourself leading a team of former peers. The transition from peer to leader can feel awkward, to say the least—you may be struggling to balance managerial duties with your individual workload, or to gain your team’s trust and respect. Learning to manage remote employees or hold tough conversations with team members are just a few of the additional challenges that may arise.
“Forty percent of managers with two years or less of experience struggle to support their team,” says Gartner. And many suffer from imposter syndrome as a result. However, with the right strategies, you can navigate the transition from individual contributor to manager with skill. You’ll certainly make mistakes along the way (what leader doesn’t?), but by following the 7 tips we’ll share in this article, you’ll establish yourself as a highly effective manager.
Table of Contents
- Build Trust and Credibility with Your Team
- Learn to Delegate Effectively
- Set Clear Expectations from the Start
- Seek Feedback Regularly
- Handle Conflicts and Difficult Conversations
- Prioritize Continuous Learning and Self-Improvement
- Celebrate Wins and Keep Team Morale High
1. Build Trust and Credibility with Your Team
As a new manager, you might be wondering how to build rapport without losing your newfound authority. The answer: Focus on cultivating respect and relationships by becoming a source of support to your team.
How to begin? Schedule weekly one-on-ones with each of your direct reports to foster open, transparent communication. These informal conversations provide a space to discuss how to overcome challenges, set appropriate goals, and prioritize time effectively. Discuss employees’ future career plans and objectives at least once a month, too.
Brand your first set of one-on-ones as listening sessions. Ask direct reports to share their thoughts on what type of leadership and learning experiences will work best for them. Here are a few questions to ask:
- “What do you hope I’ll do differently than your previous manager?”
- “What type of support do you currently lack (or need more of)?”
- “What are your greatest challenges in your work?”
The answers to these questions will help you understand your team members better, which will help you manage and coach them.
These conversations may also lend insights on how to improve workflow processes and protocols. However, experts caution against making immediate changes to these systems as a new leader. Instead, spend time listening to feedback and observing how the team functions. Identify areas for improvement and carefully design alternatives based on reflection and continued dialogue.
It’s also okay to admit you don’t know something. In fact, that can build trust. Assure the other person that you’ll seek out an answer, and then follow through.
2. Learn to Delegate Effectively
No one could survive in a leadership role without delegation. As a manager, delegating tasks to capable employees lets you use your time more effectively. Yet first-time managers too often avoid delegation for myriad reasons, struggling to spend enough time on tasks that create substantial value.
First, challenge common beliefs about delegation that you may have internalized, such as:
- “I can do the task better than anyone else.”
- “Teaching someone else to do it will take too long.”
- “Everyone is so busy already—they’ll be overwhelmed if I pile one more task onto their workload!”
When it comes to delegation, small investments of time can pay major dividends. Spending twenty minutes explaining a weekly task, and then letting the employee try it out with your guidance, could allow you to fully offload that task from your plate. If the task takes an hour, you could be saving yourself nearly fifty hours per year.
How to Start Delegating
To select tasks to delegate, consider which tasks will build your direct reports’ competencies and play to their strengths. Also think about which of the tasks on your plate are stopping you from focusing on higher-level priorities. Talk with them about their interests and which tasks they find meaningful, too.
Balancing Trust and Oversight
Walk employees through how to do these tasks, but then refrain from micromanaging. They might come up with their own techniques for completing them effectively. Then, check in periodically to answer questions or serve as a sounding board. Give lots of positive affirmation when they complete the task well.
3. Set Clear Expectations from the Start
Define team roles and responsibilities early on; don’t assume you know what they entail based on job descriptions. There may be unwritten norms that the former manager understood. So, talk with each person about what their role should involve. Then address any gaps, discussing how to fill them.
Next, set team goals that fully align with the organization’s big-picture goals. Establish KPIs that will illustrate success, and outline clear steps for achieving them. After setting team goals, help each employee craft individual goals during your one-on-ones. Their personal goals should contribute directly to team ones. Through these cascading goals, you’ll ensure your team plays a clear role in achieving the organization’s mission.
4. Seek Feedback Regularly
Create a culture of seeking input by asking for feedback openly and enthusiastically. Ask for employees’ thoughts on how your management style affects their daily work. By encouraging upward feedback from direct reports, you’ll gain invaluable insights that enhance your leadership approach.
Ask Specific Questions
Craft a “go-to feedback question” to use regularly in one-on-ones. This will help normalize the practice of asking for feedback. Plus, as people begin to expect the question, they’ll prepare thoughtful responses in advance, as Kim Scott, Liz Fosslien, and Mollie West Duffy write in Harvard Business Review. They suggest a go-to question like, “What could I do, or stop doing, that would make it easier to work with me?” or “What is one thing I can do to support you right now?”
Utilize 360 Feedback Reviews
Participating in 360 leadership assessments can deliver in-depth feedback from a range of people. After at least a month has passed, your organization could conduct a 360 review to gain input from team members. Then, you can make a plan for growth with your boss or an HR manager. Future 360 reviews will show how much progress you’ve made in particular areas.
5. Handle Conflicts and Difficult Conversations
Many new leaders (and seasoned ones) feel anxious about tackling tough conversations. But addressing issues before they escalate will make a conversation less stressful—and more effective. Approach any performance issue diplomatically, striving to see the other person’s side of the story.
During the conversation, use the principles of radical candor to speak in an empathetic yet forthright way. Having a calm, positive tone, and listening to the other person’s point of view, will help dispel any tension. Keep in mind that the other person’s emotions and reactions may shift as time goes on. “Know that the first reaction isn’t necessarily the end reaction,” says radical candor coach Farrah Mitra. “These emotions can evolve as the brain goes through the cycle of processing the news. Someone who was initially calm (or in shock) may come back angry after they have had time to reflect. Someone who was initially angry may come to accept the decision and have some questions.”
A difficult piece of news or criticism may feel threatening at first, she adds. But guide the other person into a discussion of solutions, emphasizing that there is a way to resolve the problem. Be patient, and give them time to process what you’ve told them first, if need be.
6. Prioritize Continuous Learning and Self-Improvement
Balancing personal growth with managing a team can feel daunting. But add regular time for personal development to your schedule, taking it just as seriously as any other aspect of the job.
Strive to keep learning about best practices in management and current leadership trends. Read about cutting-edge research, and find a mentor who can guide your growth. Books written by experienced leaders and coaches also have much wisdom to offer. Ask your mentor for their own thoughts on ideas you find interesting. For example, you could say, “I want to apply this advice to my work by doing X, Y, and Z. Am I on the right track?”
Conferences for emerging leaders can also be highly motivational. You’ll gain a wealth of insights and return to your job with renewed enthusiasm after such events.
Practice building, and using, emotional intelligence as well. Just 54% of employees say their manager displays empathy regularly, but showing compassion and understanding is essential for creating an inclusive environment and boosting performance. Make sure you have a mentor who displays emotional intelligence, and ask for insights on how to handle interpersonal situations.
7. Celebrate Wins and Keep Team Morale High
Foster a culture that supports psychological well-being by sharing appreciation, celebrating successes, and encouraging relationship-building.
Rewarding Successes
Begin by tracking progress toward goals on a daily and weekly basis. Performance management solutions will help you accurately track goal and KPI status, showing percentage of the goal achieved and what remains to be done.
Then, recognize and reward the achievements of both individuals and your team as a whole. Acknowledge the achievement of individual KPIs or other steps toward goals. By celebrating large and small wins, you’ll keep morale high and build a positive culture.
Acknowledge the individual strengths that led to each of these wins, too, and find fun ways to celebrate as a team. Meet for lunch, if possible, or have lunch delivered to your employees at their homes, for example.
Building Strong Relationships
Encourage team bonding and frequent collaboration. Set up regular brainstorming and collaborative work sessions, either in person or online. Empower people to voice creative ideas and try them out, where feasible. And pair them up in different ways to work on tasks and projects. This will make work more dynamic and engaging while building stronger relationships and team camaraderie.
Create space for people to share their challenges and personal successes during meetings. For instance, at the start of a weekly meeting, ask each person to share one positive and one frustrating thing that happened to them in the previous week (a “rose” and a “thorn”). This will help each person understand and empathize with everyone else.
Feeling confident and capable as a leader takes time and practice for first-time managers. But by following these strategies, you’ll lay out a clear path to success for both you and your team. Equipped with these 7 tips, you’ll establish yourself as a supportive coach who helps the team move efficiently toward its goals.
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