You got the job. Congratulations! Next thing you know, all sorts of ideas start swirling around in your mind. Most often, they can be summarized as you feeling as an impostor and believing you need to know it all now that you are a manager. I will use the term manager moving forward, but feel free to substitute with other terms such as team leader or supervisor. Whatever it is, this is your first formal leadership role. You are now responsible to lead a team of people, manage their performance and achieve organizational priorities.
From my experience, here are the top 5 challenges new managers face and what you need to know to have a great first year on the job.
I need to know everything.
The sooner you let go of this belief, the easier things will get. There is a high chance that your area of expertise is one of the many areas your team is responsible for. And so, you won't be an expert in everything each one of your team members does. Don't pretend to be and don't try to be. You were given the job because someone believed you are able to lead people not because of your technical competence. What got you here won't get you there. You might have heard that before. A manager is not an expert. You might be called on to demonstrate your expertise in a certain field in an organizational project, but as the leader of a team, let go of that belief.
Instead, think of yourself as the conductor of an orchestra. You bring people together, you clarify their roles, you ensure they have the tools and resources to do their job, you listen to them, provide feedback on their work and support them to grow. You are humble and admit what you don't know. Most importantly, you need to learn how to ask great questions to stimulate their thinking, to be curious and open to possibilities. Then they will come up with great answers, most often much better than the answers you can come up with. Read more here about what I think are the 3 key elements to being an effective manager.
It is no longer about you and what you can get done. No matter how efficient you are and how productive you've always been, you need to shift to ensuring the team is set up for success. What does that mean? It means a few things:
Are the right people on the bus? If you read Good to Great by Jim Collins you might remember that quote. If you didn't, then it means that you need to pay a great deal of attention to hiring so that you get the best people on your team and you also need to promptly address any issues you identify with current team members. It sometimes happens that employees who are low performers manage to stay in a job because managers never wanted to deal with them. If you find such a situation, ask for help and deal with it. Just because it has been tolerated for the last 10 years it doesn't mean you need to let it continue.
Do you have systems in place to facilitate an effective way for the team to achieve results? This includes anything from how your meetings are set up, how the goals are outlined and tracked, how you communicate with your team and anything else that can help you and this group of people get stuff done in a simple and efficient manner. If you don't and you need to ask for funds or for support to put a system in place, ensure that you have identified what the benefits would be to the organization first.
Are you putting people first? You will achieve no or very few results if you don't understand that the results are created by people. Most of your time and energy especially during the early days needs to be allocated to connecting, understanding, supporting, inspiring and coaching the people on your team. As you build competency in others, you create space for yourself to do what you are best at and they grow and develop.
3. How can I support everyone's wellbeing?
It is acknowledged that everyone is tired, stressed and overwhelmed. These are challenging times and particularly in public sector organizations where bureaucracy still rules, it it not easy for employees to come to work and contribute as much as one might think. It is true that in workplaces we have a huge opportunity to influence the health and wellbeing of people and we need to take advantage of that so that we can all have a better life. So leaders and organizations are engaging in all sorts of initiatives to do so. But as a leader, you often feel like you need to be there for everyone and who is going to be there for you? Here are three things to consider:
Start each team meeting asking people to describe how they are coming in. They could put it in the chat or say it out loud.
Don't feel like you need to fix it. If someone says they are tired, your job is to hold space for them to feel safe to say that and then you can ask "How does support from me look like right now?". This way, you asked the person what they need from you and you will find that in most situations, people just want you to listen and acknowledge, they don't need you to fix their problems. Or you can coach them to come up with a solution to their problem.
Be vulnerable and share how you are feeling. Go first. If there is something you've done recently to help with that, share it as well. People need to see you as a human being not as their manager. That is at the core of cultivating safety and trust which promotes a culture of belonging. People leave jobs not because the organization does not have a great employee and family assistance program and supports for mental health, they leave jobs because their direct supervisor does not truly care about them as people.
4. I feel overwhelmed.
It is common to hear leaders talking about a feeling of overwhelm. Unfortunately it has become the norm in workplaces to use this term which leaves a new manager feeling that is ok because everyone else is in the same boat. That might be the case or you can intentionally choose a different path.
There are too many things to do on any given day and truthfully you can always find yourself adding more things to your to do list than crossing off. Here are 5 things I do consistently to clarify what actually matters so that I feel I got something that matters done at the end of each day:
Review your yearly, quarterly and monthly goals. Choose 1 to 3 tasks you will get done today to reach those goals. You would preferably do this the day before so that you can start the day with a clear plan.
Get those things done first. That might require that you block off time in your calendar to do so ahead of time.
Set time aside to deal with administrative matters. These time blocks will ensure that you can regularly review what needs to get done, prioritize and schedule when the work will get done. As Cal Newport calls is, this is the "capture, configure, control" system.
Be intentional about setting aside time to work on important, but non-urgent projects. While you might have tackled that in the first bullet point, many people never find the time for those. I am referring to projects that move you and your organization forward, but are not terribly urgent. For example, working on a customer service strategy or leading a team to refresh training content.
Build new connections each week. Book coffee meetings, virtual meetings, walking meetings, whatever works for you. Developing your network within and outside your organization is crucial to your success. It can feel intimidating at times to reach out to people you don't know, but the worse thing that can happen is that they don't get back to you and that probably means they are overwhelmed!
5. I am unprepared to deal with conflict.
By far the most frightening aspect of a new manager's job is dealing with conflict. That often happens when one employee is in conflict with another and now the manager needs to deal with it. I wish I could tell you there is a magic wand you can wave so that everyone can get along. Instead, here are 3 things I know that work from my experience:
Let go of the belief that everyone needs to like you. There is a difference between being respected and liked. As a manager, aim for "respected".
It is never about the problem they are bringing forward, it is always about the person. It is about how they feel. I recommend to all my clients to read up on the SCARF model developed by Dr. David Rock at the NeuroLeadership Institute to understand more about the way in which people behave, particularly in the workplace. At the core of it, we all want to be safe. When threatened (see the 5 elements of SCARF that outline how we perceive threats), we act in ways that don't seem reasonable to others.
The more you practice showing up imperfectly and dealing with the conflict, the easier it will get. You might be tempted to postpone it. Don't. Every time you do that, you create a story in your mind and most often, you blow it out of proportion. Take a bit of time to think about the way you are going to approach the meeting, do it and then reflect without judgement so that you can do better next time. Reach out to your mentor or direct supervisor and ask for support. But don't put it off!
I hope you picked up a few useful tips from this post. But here is the most important one, thank you for reading till the end:
It is always about your self-image. How you think about yourself determines the way in which you will navigate any situation. If you see yourself as someone who deserves to have that job, who doesn't know everything and doesn't need to know everything, who is confident in their uniqueness and knows that they are there to do the best they can every day, you will be able to show up confident yet humble. Being comes before doing! Working on your self-image and aligning that with the person you want to be, does not have to be complicated. I am currently developing a tool that is simple, fast and easy to use based on my experience and training. Sign up for the newsletter to be the first to find out when it is ready.
And if you want to work with me 1-on-1 so that you can intentionally develop your self-image and be more confident, book a strategy call.
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