If you are a new manager (or even if you are an “old” manager), you should not manage by trial and error. Too much is at risk…your reputation, the trust and respect of your team, upset and turnover in the ranks, team performance and your sense of well-being.
What you really need is targeted and relevant new manager training that will teach you what you need to know to succeed in this new supervisory role—a role where others depend upon you for leadership, direction and motivation. You are no longer simply responsible for managing yourself; you are responsible for managing an entire team and for their individual and collective performance results.
Until you have the opportunity for new manager training to provide you with the foundation to succeed, make sure you don’t make the following all-too-common mistakes:
- Pretending you have all the answers.
Your team is far more likely to respect an honest “I don’t know” than your pretense at knowing more than you do. A little humility can go a long way toward building trust as a new manager. Make sure that you seek your team’s feedback, suggestions and help to create the circumstances necessary for high performance.
- Trying to do it all.
Being a new manager is the perfect time to learn how to better depend upon others. First understand your own strengths, weaknesses and aspirations. Then get to know the strengths and weaknesses of the individuals on your team. Understand what drives them and what they like to do. Then make and continually adjust assignments based upon what makes sense to you, to them, and to the team as you work toward common goals.
- Favoring friends.
As a manager in charge of others, you cannot be seen to treat any on your team with favoritism. Nothing can undercut respect faster than treating team members unfairly. Expectations for success and failure for each job should be clearly stated and transparent to all. Rewards and consequences should be applied appropriately, consistently and evenly according to the standards set by you and the team. Sure you can (and should) reward people differently based upon their performance. Just do not do it based upon anything else.
- Blaming others.
Being a new manager comes with higher expectations and greater levels of exposure than being an individual contributor. When things go awry, your team will carefully watch your reactions. Are you going to call out those who made a mistake or will you have their back? New managers work hard to see that they achieve results fast to prove they deserved the promotion. But if they lose the trust of the team, they have lost more than they know. Instead, by owning up to the mistake and working with the team to fix it, a new manager will earn the respect of their superiors as well as the loyalty of their team.
Learn more at: http://www.lsaglobal.com/new-supervisor-new-manager-training/
