Written by Marc Bolick
First-time people managers face a range of challenges, from self-doubt to developing a range of new skills. It is key for leadership to provide structured support and training to ensure their success and the overall health of the organization.
An all-too-familiar story
Christine just logged off a Zoom meeting with the VP of Customer Success. She was asked if she wanted to be the new director for the Eastern Region. This was the opportunity she was hoping for, so of course she said yes.
Last week, her boss discreetly mentioned that he was going to be moving on and that he had been strongly advocating for her to be promoted to his position, but she was caught off guard by how fast things had moved.
As soon as she accepted the director position, her life became 110% focused on work. She had an excellent command of the customer base and the technical aspects of her previous work, but she was suddenly thrust into managing a team of former peers.
A month into the job, she felt overwhelmed and the stress was taking a toll. She felt completely unprepared for the upcoming performance review season, not to mention how to fill two open positions and having to provide department-level inputs to the annual planning cycle.
In this all-to-common situation the new manager either eventually finds her way as a new boss and her team succeeds, or she struggles to develop the required people-management skills and her team performance suffers.
For her team members, this leadership transition can be full of uncertainty, lack of direction, mixed signals, frustration and low motivation. For the new manager, the pressure and stress of the new role can be overwhelming.
Leaving the outcome of a new people manager transition to chance is risky and can have broad, long-term negative consequences for the overall organization.
Why do managers matter?
While the old adage “people quit bosses not companies” does not capture all the reasons people leave an organization, research from McKinsey shows that the employee-manager relationship is by far the most important factor in job satisfaction, and it has an outsized impact on personal wellbeing.
Relationships with management are critical to employee satisfaction (Image by McKinsey & Company)
Your manager matters because they hold power over you and that power can dramatically affect both your performance on the job, and your personal life. A whopping 75% of employees in the McKinsey study said their boss was the most stressful part of their job!
People managers are the primary actors that the organization has to serve customers and to drive change.
They direct what line workers do on a day-to-day basis that, in turn, creates the experiences that customers have. Through their decision making and resource allocation, managers wield their formal power to direct work, measure performance, motivate and provide feedback to every employee in the company.
With perhaps the exception of the CEO, everyone has a manager, someone they report to who influences their career progression and their status within the organization. So, the process of helping a new people manager transition to a leadership position- especially someone who has not held a people leadership position before - is critical to maintaining the overall health of the organization.
Becoming a good manager is difficult
From the first moment Christine starts her new position as a manager she encounters a steep learning curve. She must learn her new responsibilities, meet new peers, forge a relationship with her new boss, assess her team’s abilities and ensure that their most pressing deliverables are on track.
Perhaps the hardest task is learning how to lead others and helping your team succeed in their individual roles. Leadership is not the same as management, but new managers have to master both the technical and administrative tasks, as well as the soft skills that make a team leader effective. Unfortunately, most organizations have some form of onboarding process, but many do not have a comprehensive process in place to bring new managers up to speed.
New people managers face a unique set of challenges that determine whether they will succeed or fail in their new role:
- Lack of training and preparation
Many new managers receive little or no training, or their training only comes months, or even years, into the job. - Difficulty transitioning from individual contributor to leader
The shift from managing your own performance to leading a team of former peers challenges existing relationships and can take an emotional toll. - Communication challenges
New people managers must learn to communicate effectively up, down and across the organization, which requires a specific skill set and knowledge of unwritten rules. - Difficulty delegating and risk of micromanagement
Striking a balance between monitoring team member activities too closely and delegating tasks requires experience and diplomacy. Balancing time spent on one’s own work while overseeing others complicates the learning process. - Lack of confidence and soft skills
Taking on a management role for the first time can be intimidating and even small stumbles or indecisiveness can erode confidence. It often takes time to develop the soft skills needed to effectively resolve conflicts, navigate politics and motivate a team. - Failing to set clear expectations and inspire excellence
New leaders often struggle to establish and clearly communicate goals and responsibilities to team members, which can lead to difficulty motivating high performance and result in low engagement.
Leaving the new manager to struggle through any of these areas on their own is a recipe for disappointment.
Organizations need to carefully consider how they support new people managers, from the moment a person is identified as a potential leader through to the point where they are effectively leading and developing their teams.
Photo by Mart Production
Prepare new people leaders before they are promoted
What if Christine’s story were completely different? What if her company intentionally designed the new people manager experience so Christine was prepared for her new responsibilities before she was even promoted? This is where designing a specific new manager development program comes into play.
Leadership in any organization has its own flavor, so there is no one-size-fits-all solution to preparing new people managers. While each program should be designed for the organization’s specific context, the following components should be considered as part of a new manager development program:
- Connect leadership development directly to the strategy development process and ensure it is grounded in the values and culture of the organization. Remember that your people leaders – the essential ‘middle management' of your company – are the most important agents for executing your strategy, so getting this right is essential to success.
- Design your new people manager program with a clear set of development phases, from leadership development to new manager onboarding through to the moment when the new manager has acquired the skills and confidence for the new job.
- Include growth experiences that allow a high-potential individual contributor the opportunity to develop soft skills while learning to manage the work of others; for example as a project leader.
- Provide coaching and/or mentoring to new people managers to allow ample opportunity for them to learn-by-doing, with a trusted coach or mentor who can bridge experience gaps and grow the skills needed for a particular role.
- Clearly define the people, systems, and processes needed to support the person to be successful throughout each phase of their leadership development.
The key to making this kind of leadership development program effective is to develop, test and iterate a program that works for your specific organization. Even a small amount of new manager preparation can go a long way. Start by carefully plotting out the different steps and stages a new people manager needs to go through in your organization, then build out the most important components first.
The ultimate support partner
Unsurprisingly, Christine’s manager in her new role (the VP of Customer Success who hired her) will have the most influence on her ability to succeed in her new role. The company should have a standard “new manager onboarding process” that the VP can help Christine follow. The VP can coordinate with HR to customize the process for Christine’s specific development needs.
It is this partnership with her manager that will determine whether Christine ends up thriving as a manager or becoming frustrated and feeling like she has failed. Just as she will need to learn to develop her team members, her manager needs to provide the clarity of direction and the resources needed for Christine and her team to be successful.
This partnership between the new people manager and their boss should be an essential part of the process. Her manager has to model desired behaviors, provide appropriate guidance without micromanaging, give feedback and actively help her succeed.
A win-win-win
For the individual contributor, taking the leap to become a people manager can be immediately rewarding and open up incredible career growth opportunities. For top leadership, effective people managers are the foundation for a healthy and productive organization.
The knock-on effect of effective new people managers is that their teams have better prepared leaders. With the appropriate training and preparation, these new leaders bring fresh perspectives and new energy to their teams that can have a productivty-boosting effect. Conversely, promoting an individual contributor to a management postion without support can severely demotivate a team.
Developing new leaders takes a focused effort, time and experimentation. Having an effective new people manager program helps people like Christine reach their full potential, and helps the company achieve its goals through stronger leaders and more effective teams.
At reshift we help leaders design critical employee experiences like new people manager programs. If you would like to learn how we might help your organization, drop us a note at info@reshift.us.
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Author Marc Bolick is founder and managing partner of reshift, an innovation support partner for leaders and teams seeking Big Change. He draws on decades of experience in product and service innovation to facilitate collaborative problem solving and drive impact for the most complex challenges organizations face.