Congratulations! You’ve got the Manager’s job.
Getting your first job as a manager is an amazing feeling.
The World of management can be a fantastically rewarding career, one that will challenge you and allows you to develop every single day.
But, it can also be a little daunting. Suddenly you’re responsible for others and all eyes are on you to have the answers, especially when things are more difficult.
You’ve worked hard to get to where you are… be proud of yourself. This is the beginning of a great career journey but it can also be easy to put too much pressure on yourself too soon, so we’ve got these seven tips which will helps ease the transition in to your new role.
1. Understand that the way you work is going to be different
You’re used to having work allocated to you and having set tasks to complete by the end of the day. At the end of each day, you then have a nice pile of completed work so you can visibly see how much you’ve accomplished.
That’s not the case now. Other than tasks that may be delegated to you from your manager, you’re responsible for the workloads of yourself and others.
This doesn’t sound like much but believe me, it’s something many new managers have difficulty adjusting to.
When you leave work at the end of the day, you won’t see a nice neat pile of completed work to give you that warm fuzzy sense of accomplishment to tell you how amazing you are. You’ll more likely think, “I’ve been busy all day but what have I achieved?” Don’t worry, that’s normal.
You’ll have days when urgent matters arise and impact on your ability to work through the to-do list you’ve carefully created. Understand that is your job now – to successfully adapt to what is happening around you.
You’re also accountable too – if something needs to be done, the expectation is you get it done. If that means coming in early or staying a little later, then, within reason, it’s on you.
2. Get to know your team
I recommend to managers of any level to take time to meet with their team members. Get to know the individuals, understand what motivates them, how they feel about their role and what their ambitions are.
Take an interest in them on a personal level too. What’s their family situation? What are their hobbies? Are they in to music, follow a sports team or something else?
The point is to try to connect with people on an individual level as you now need these people to perform. You need the team to perform and do their job so you can effectively do yours. Therefore, the better you connect, the more beneficial this will become in time.
3. Keep learning
We’re going to assume you had a focused development plan to help you prepare and progress to this job, and you didn’t just fluke your way in!
Either way, never ever stop learning.
The focus of your development is likely to change, from being process oriented to being more behavioural and how to support others.
Understand that as a manager, you need to keep your skills up-to-date as the World of work and management is constantly changing.
Key development areas you may want to focus on include:
- Find out about your company’s people processes. In particular, managing sickness absence, reward and recognition and performance appraisals. Know where they are, read them, understand them – if you want to be an effective manager, these are the basics you need to know.
- Feedback skills – being able to provide effective feedback is an essential skill for managers at any level so it’s worth developing this capability early on in your career.
- Motivation – people are motivated in so many different ways. The ability to motivate the individuals in your team will help you succeed so the better understanding you have of motivation, the better you will be able to harness this knowledge and help others want to perform. Start with Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs and Herzberg’s two-factor theory of motivation as these are two well known theories of motivation.
- Beyond that – continue to do some research on management and leadership. Use a range of resources available to you – your organisation’s learning materials, blogs, articles, and YouTube videos for example.
4. You’re not there to be liked by everyone
We know, it’s nice to be liked but sometimes as managers we have to make tough decisions and do things that aren’t always popular.
People will challenge and test you, especially early on. Get comfortable with the fact you’re going to be criticised and judged, developing a thick skin is part of the journey.
Rather than being everyone’s friend, what your team really need from you is consistency, integrity and fairness. In time, they’ll learn that everything you do is in the best interests of the team. They might not always like you for it, but they’ll respect you for it.
“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”
Benjamin Franklin
5. 5Ps
Ben Franklin reportedly said that “by failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”, and it’s true.
At ThinkCanWill, we’re guided by the 5Ps – ‘Prior Preparation Prevents Poor Performance’.
In everything you do – be as prepared as you can. Allocate time in your increasingly busy diary to ensure you’re prepared. Prepare for changes you want to make, prepare for the nice meetings, prepare for the difficult ones, always be prepared.
6. Be patient
You’ve not done this before, you’re learning. You’re going to experience ups and downs. Some days will be great, other days you’ll wonder whether you’re cut out for it. Allow yourself to have these experiences and learn from them.
Many managers think they need to assert their authority straight away so come in and start making changes to ‘show people who’s boss’.
Our advice? Take your time to learn and understand the team, the individuals, the current performance, the service offering, the customers, their needs and expectations. Once you understand these different elements, you’re much better placed to make informed changes that better serve the interests of the team and its stakeholders.
7. Lead by example
The onus is on YOU to lead the way. You will have different experiences of managers and it takes time to find your style. The best advice at this stage is to behave the way you want your team to behave. Be the example for others to follow. Be the kind of person you’d look up to and want to follow.
Bossing people around because you’re in charge won’t get you very far – instead, treat everyone with dignity and respect and remember, the team don’t work for you, YOU work for the team.
Realising your job is to work for those in your charge will ensure your intentions are focused correctly and this will be a good guide throughout your career.
So there you go. You’re at the start of a potentially amazing and rewarding journey. Her patient, continue to learn and do what is right for your team. Enjoy the challenge, the responsibility and the achievements.
If you start to wonder if you’ve made the right move, remember, if you think you can, you will.
All the best.
Think Can Will 