Stepping into a management position for the first time is a big career move. It also comes with plenty of new responsibilities, but thoughtful, new manager advice helps leaders find their footing. You are now responsible for more than just your own work.
Your results now come from the team members you coach. This journey to being a top-notch, first-time manager takes time, patience, and practice, so acting on solid new manager advice is important.
Table Of Contents:
- Building Trust as a New Manager
- Having Amazing 1:1 Meetings
- How To Become a Better Communicator
- Making Better Decisions
- Growing and Getting Guidance
- Setting Expectations Early
- Ways to Deal with Failure
- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
- Conclusion
New Manager Advice #1: Building Trust as a New Manager
Early on, many might think “manager” and “leader” mean the same thing. Leadership skills are more of a quality. A manager’s role can be assigned, but leadership must be earned.
New managers need to master managing people on a small team. You’ll have the credibility to help them reach bigger goals once you have trust. This type of trust means team members feel comfortable being honest.
Julie Zhuo, former VP of Product Design at Facebook and author of The Making of a Manager, emphasizes asking questions. She found most people’s efforts to “help” aren’t actually helpful. Instead, asking insightful questions to your team, and yourself, is helpful.
Key Questions to Gauge Team Trust
Are your direct reports consistently bringing their major problems to you? If a team member tells Zhuo that things are consistently going well for several weeks after asking how everything is, she knows something could be better. It suggests more probing may be necessary.
Would people happily work for you a second time? Seeing someone move roles and their past team joining them, is powerful insight about their leadership.
You can get insights by asking what someone’s ideal manager does. Then review how you measure up.
New Manager Advice #2: Having Amazing 1:1 Meetings
Your time and focus are critical as a manager. Giving that time to your team is amazing for forming better connections. That’s what makes one-on-one meetings very crucial to leading teams.
Great 1:1s make your direct report feel like it helped them. You can improve if a meeting was fine but not very helpful.
Do your meetings feel a tad bit awkward?
Zhuo’s friend, Mark Rabkin, suggests aiming for some awkwardness in 1:1s. Major talks often share that aspect. Sharing failures, talking through stress, discussing dreams… isn’t always easy.
Strong bonds don’t come only through surface-level conversations. Things need to come out for something to happen. Zhuo shares the value in a sentence like: “I feel my good work isn’t noticed,” as one of the most awkward things to share with a leader.
Helpful Questions For Leading 1:1 Discussions
Instead of jumping in with solutions, help people discover their answers. Empower them. They often know the details of the situation, so are able to know what helps the situation.
Here’s a useful list to get things going:
- What’s at the forefront of your mind now?
- Which things are important to get to this week?
- How can we use our meeting time in the best way?
Zhuo also suggests questions that go into better depth of what is happening.
- What result do you think would work best?
- Why is reaching the best path hard for you?
- What truly is most important to you about this?
Zhuo goes on to further discuss, offering supportive resources.
- In what ways might I provide more help?
- What steps help you reach higher success?
- What was the single best thing you gained here today?
New Manager Advice #3: How To Become a Better Communicator
For managers, giving feedback is crucial when things are great, and when they aren’t. Your feedback only counts if it improves things. It’s not going to truly help without giving a way to address a problem.
Great coaches help their direct reports get better by leading them the right way. Giving feedback overcomes two hurdles to greater results by clearing up confusion and adding a way for skill improvement. Constructive feedback assists everyone in grasping where to look and what success is.
How frequently are you offering suggestions?
Reports very often request “more feedback” from leadership in reviews. The easy initial action is to give people insights often, reminding yourself to give suggestions. Regular one-on-one meetings are great for this.
Whenever people are doing something — sending out something, chatting with buyers, finalizing an agreement, speaking during gatherings — notice if you are able to show her valuable, constructive feedback. Try for mostly positive feedback. Tell them things such as “I appreciated your insights” or, “I really liked your ability to provide a calming perspective during a tough meeting.”
Avoid focusing only on sharing feedback about a job. Another frequent concern that reports convey in meetings: asking for guidance for future career paths. You want to be providing guidance regularly.
Ways To Check If You’re Actually Being Understood
What you mean and the messages received don’t at times align. You might feel something is crystal clear while you are using the incorrect phrasing. You might send the wrong thing through your nonverbal actions.
Some sources also point out the risk of confirmation bias skewing interpretation. This is the habit to interpret data in a style backing already held perspectives.
To better get your meaning across is making someone feel secure and sharing because their personal growth is crucial to you. People block a message if there is even a faint inkling something selfish behind it.
Julie recommends, directly express things clearly, followed up with the question, “What are your views on my insights. Give me specifics why you view it the way you do?”. Someone has to both concur and reflect, by agreeing. A lack of agreement allows opening of further dialog. She goes on to add to also ask before concluding: “Are you aligned on my key viewpoints from the chat?”
New Manager Advice #4: Making Better Decisions
Making choices easily stalls many people from being productive and also by thinking about the choices way too long. It is wise to consider factors and weigh the benefits. Pick the top choice, make the choice, so that it is possible to proceed onward with tasks.
As a new manager, fast decisions show others the direction the team must progress towards. In sports, a rapid choice means quickly acting on the field and quickly shifting players in the most valuable spot for success. Making a strategy shift swiftly could very well shift outcomes that could make a win over losing a match, which you will also find in competitive markets.
Data-Driven Thinking
Gather info from many paths to provide backing for options. Seek different stats and explore trends across the sector. Ask others across all ranges for views. All of this supports decisions rather than purely trusting instinct.
This type of framework lets judging possibilities across steady principles rather than pure speculation. Such structure and consistency gives help for all kinds of leadership to build trust.
Thinking Big Picture
Consider exactly how any solution fits alongside the broad company strategy. Check that short-term successes don’t bring long-term failures somewhere else. Check with people in leadership too that new actions don’t get in the way of already started long-term steps.
Collaboration with those leading also grows better awareness of ways of improving choices based on wider organizational goals for all involved. The team building with a wider business grows awareness of many pathways to make decisions better while fitting to higher paths ahead for those in the larger system.
The people running Leeds tapped Gracia as a new manager. They likely aimed for some of those traits. The organization chose to add people known for certain skill strengths when adding Javi Gracia to grow wins overall.
New Manager Advice #5: Growing and Getting Guidance
Turning into the main person advising a team can take effort. Seeking feedback from other experienced leaders helps too.
There’s an incorrect perception that getting guidance signals fragility. It reveals an openness and desire to be great. Finding someone with history helps walk across pathways by spotting hidden risks. Consider it a form of management training.
Knowing Continuous Change is Inevitable
Just staying exactly the same will not last long in current competitive worlds. Getting a passion for always finding better ways allows growing even through adversity. Great managers are always improving.
Seeking chances and gathering new knowledge keeps you fresh in your ability for addressing changes, as mentioned in Harvard Business Review in 2022. Adapting builds an attitude that enables continuous improvement. Growing to understand changes better encourages forward growth.
Think on reflecting to get feedback for improving personal development: Think over results following actions. Where were chances lost to excel even further beyond basic requirements to attain exceptional outcomes that change everything for many people?
New Manager Advice #6: Setting Expectations Early
Being upfront about expectations from day one builds strong foundations. Set times early for getting things handled the correct path, detailing goals expected, and how others assess you. Transparently set norms early on, letting teams work free of later friction.
This avoids many common traps from happening and confusion in priorities. Effective management starts with clear expectations.
Getting Buy-in From All Team Members
Ask direct reports their feelings. Discuss all levels of their perspectives when thinking across priorities. Give attention so individuals feel heard.
By letting people give feedback and aligning to it across key goals. Then teamwork runs better across open knowledge of each person.
There are new managers at Bolton and Blackburn. Their leaders chose managers showing the right mixture of skill sets while adapting to newer playing approaches. Showing awareness to fit wider patterns shows the wise choices a good leader should make regularly for lasting success across entire seasons of work and competition too.
New Manager Advice #7: Ways to Deal with Failure
Failure happens, and leaders learn from their failures. How a leader acts shows team strength in a meaningful way. All great leaders face setbacks.
Blaming individuals rather than reviewing the bigger process is the wrong path, as HBR.org mentioned in 2022. Seeing missteps is good. A collaborative style is useful in those tougher conversations too.
If your team fails, it’s up to you to help fix it. Learning how to give negative feedback in the right way is critical. Never make employees feel bad for long.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are some common mistakes new managers make?
New managers often struggle with delegating tasks, providing clear feedback, and balancing their own workload with their team’s needs. Making mistakes is normal, the key is to learn from them.
Bad managers don’t ask for help. Remember, asking for guidance isn’t a sign of weakness; it’s a sign of strength and a commitment to growth.
How can I build a strong team environment?
Encourage open communication, foster collaboration, and recognize individual contributions. Create a safe space where team members feel comfortable sharing ideas and taking risks. Celebrate both individual and team successes to boost morale.
What is the best leadership style for a new manager?
There’s no single “best” leadership style, as it depends on the team and the situation. Great leaders will explore what management style is the best for each of their direct reports.
| Leadership Approach | Description | When to Use |
|---|---|---|
| Transformational | Inspires and motivates team members to exceed expectations | When needing innovation and to inspire others to perform their best. |
| Coaching | Focuses on developing individual team member strengths | When working with team members who want to improve their own working style and improve in their roles. |
| Democratic | Involves team members in decision-making | When the team works better in more of a team approach situation. |
| Servant Leadership | Servant leaders focus on helping their teams | When wanting to improve employee engagement across direct reports and team members. |
However, being adaptable, supportive, and focused on your team’s needs is always a good starting point. New managers may want to read some books managing a new team for more insights.
Conclusion
Working across group settings provides opportunities for outcomes and improvements. When steps proceed thoughtfully, everyone no longer views actions at an individual lens, that instead grows larger perspectives and mutual benefits for everyone together. That truly goes further than an individual’s single contribution can grow alone.
When new manager advice supports building up other people, that has lasting affects well past when someone remains at that role. Good interpersonal skills can improve a work environment a great deal.
Hopefully, this new manager advice improves results and reduces high turnover across all parts of a business. While we didn’t directly address it, having strong emotional intelligence goes a long way. Focus on helping people reach their professional goals while reaching business outcome goals, together.
