10 Tips To Help First-Time Managers Be More Successful

Being a first-time manager is a huge step forward in a person's career. Managing people can be hugely rewarding, but it requires top-notch leadership skills. As a champion of talent within your organization, it’s important to arm fresh management with resources that will help boost confidence, improve performance, and decrease the ramp time in their new role.

Here are 10 tips to share with a first-time manager to be more successful in their new leadership position.

Making a good first impression will be half the battle in establishing yourself as a competent leader. But how do you earn the confidence of others with no management experience? To start with, you’ll have to declutter your mind and think strategically.

You have new responsibilities when you switch from being an individual contributor to a team manager. You are overseeing every aspect of a project or operations, employees and performance reviews, and perhaps remote teams. It is a manager’s job to have a vision and to guide their teams to achieve that vision. But doing so requires a new mindset, so decluttering the mind of your old role will help you think afresh.

Decluttering means you will have to relinquish much of what you did before. To manage, you have to delegate more of the hands-on work to team members so that you can focus on other things.

It can be awkward when first time new managers are placed in a position of power where ex-peers remain. Your ex-peers might feel a bit uncomfortable now that a former colleague is the boss. It is okay to acknowledge the new team structure and may be worthwhile to reset goals, expectations, and possibly new boundaries. This is especially important if your boss is giving you space to manage the team your way.

The good news is, you are not on an island. If you are at a larger organization, set up a networking schedule to meet with same-level managers and skip-level managers within one month of promotion to help build new, meaningful relationships and gain confidence to lead.

Do what feels natural, and the dynamics of the relationship will fall into place.

Make delegating a priority skillset from the get-go to free up your time. You can no longer be mired in the details of projects and operations, you now need a broader perspective. First-time managers often struggle to give up former responsibilities if staying within the same team.

If possible, sit down with the former manager to highlight skills and motivations of the team so you can assign tasks to people who are best suited to that project and who want to take on the task. Don’t make assumptions because if someone does not want responsibility, they will not perform well. Resist the temptation to micromanage once you have delegated. This can be a hard lesson for the first-time manager.

Managers who lack delegation skills often become micromanagers and lose the trust of their teams. Because you are no longer in the trenches, you will need your team to give accurate status reports versus stepping in to do the job. Establish a method for communications with trusted reports to keep you in the loop. Be aware that often employees are reluctant to deliver bad news to a manager, so be diligent in asking for a complete picture so small things that could be caught early do not spiral out of control.

Success in a leadership role will depend on how well a first-time manager builds trust and respect among their teams. A team will maintain strong employee engagement, good morale, and a willingness to offer feedback. That feedback will prove invaluable to future decisions. Frontline workers have valuable insights and know exactly how a business strategy is playing out.

Everybody wants to be heard, so if you are new to the organization or division, set up a system for staff to give feedback during your first few weeks in the new role. An anonymous survey, one-on-ones, informal coffee chats are great feedback loop methods. Make it a priority to reach out to staff and take the pulse of the mood within your teams.

Staff should feel safe when they give feedback. Otherwise, problems and conflicts are likely to be ignored and left to fester. In fact, delivering negative feedback or bad news should be seen as the first step to improvements. It will take time for you to get comfortable with the delivery of constructive feedback. Try to be as transparent as possible as a manager to earn the trust of your teams.

A good manager has a vision and sets milestones on the way to achieving that vision, but they need a team's hard work. Clear communication and the ability to gain buy-in are critical skills for a first-time manager. Does your organization offer leadership coaching to help managers articulate their vision and goals? Outside leadership coaching can help new managers develop their communication skills and ramp up faster into their role.

Hopefully, your ideas will benefit everyone involved and result in a win-win, but that needs to be clear to your teams. In some cases, it’s a good strategy to include employees, customers, and stakeholders in the product development process, or when deciding business strategy. They will feel valued, and it might reveal risks that were otherwise overlooked.

New managers should book thinking time on their calendar. As an individual contributor, you might have had plenty of time to focus on projects. As a manager, your calendar will be booked up with staff meetings, executive management meetings, meetings with clients, meetings with managers from other departments, and more.

Be vigilant in reserving time to process all the learnings from meetings and interactions and plan how best to communicate that information to your target audience. What you do with the information and data will directly affect the success as a manager.

For more details on effective time management, read "8 Tips to Improve Your Time Management Skills." Setting boundaries is a critical skill all managers, new and experienced, struggle to do effectively. Working with a leadership or life coach can help new managers acquire the right tools to create those boundaries at work. 

This concept is grounded in a management style called “servant leadership.” It is where the leader serves for the greater good rather than prioritizing their own objectives. This means putting employees' needs ahead of your own. Rather than telling people what to do, act more as an advisor or coach in a management role.

This is easier said than done. According to a study published in Harvard Business Review, 24% of the executives significantly overestimated their coaching abilities, rating themselves as above average while their colleagues ranked them in the bottom third of the group. Often time managers do not have the resources or time to develop good coaching habits as it takes a consistent effort over time.

For example, if an employee is not performing well, a new manager can ask them for their ideas on how they can do better, and let them come to their own conclusions and ways to improve. They might come up with a better plan than the manager!
Becoming a coach more than a manager takes practice but can reap the benefits of a strong performing and motivated team. Working with an external leadership coach 1-2x per month for the first 6 months of your first leadership role can help you soar beyond expectations.

Recognize and reward your employees from the start. A simple and consistent thank you is not just a pleasantry, it shows that you appreciate and notice what someone has done. A great manager will set an example by always saying thank you. Consider setting up a weekly or monthly event where each person thanks someone else publicly. If the budget allows, do something nice for your team. Lunch on you, surprise afternoon off, setup a peer bonus fund, etc. Public recognition goes a long way in engaging and motivating a remote workforce. It may seem trite to start with, but this open communication builds a culture of appreciation and willingness to help others simply by drawing attention to it. Why not shine the light on good deeds?

New leaders are going to experience brand new scenarios that they won’t know how to handle. They need support but most organizations don’t have the bandwidth internally. Fortunately, there are excellent coaches who can be a consistent source of support. A coach can provide a broader perspective and serve a neutral voice.

A great coach can help new managers with confidence building, effective communication, defining your leadership style, goal-setting, handling tough situations, and more. If your organization partners with a company like Placement, new managers can seamlessly work with multiple coaches to work through specific situations and challenges.

Last but far from least is managing your relationship with your boss. Here are tips for building a great relationship with your supervisor.
 

These are some tips the first-time manager can follow, but there are many more. Remember that you are on a learning curve. It will take time for you to adapt to a new role and hone your leadership skills, so don’t be too hard on yourself as you navigate the halls of corporate management. Be an active listener, a servant leader, reach out for support, and you’ll be a successful manager with strong working relationships to support you.