Transcript
Meisha: Hello everybody! Welcome to the Meisha Rouser Show. Of course I’m Meisha, shocker, isn’t it? This show is all about professional leadership development. Everything you need to know to be more confident and competent in your professional life. We talk about everything from communication skills, personal productivity, leading without authority, emotional intelligence and so on.
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Okay, so what are we doing today? We are going to be talking about being a new manager or supervisor. If you’re not a new manager or supervisor, do still listen because this does still apply to you. More than likely you are going to be promoted and so each time that we move up in the hierarchy in the ranks a lot of these same tips are applicable.
I’m going to start with 15 tips for new managers and supervisors. Then I’m going to go into the most common mistakes that managers or supervisor makes. Keep in mind, when transitioning into any type of new managerial role, it could be as a supervisor up to a vice president, every time we transition into that new role it isn’t just a promotion and a pay raise. It’s a shift in a new type of role that requires a whole new skill set.
Here are some tips to keep in mind when you’re transitioning into that new role or position.
1. Don’t Let the Position Go To Your Head. Letting it you go to your head can look like, “Oh yeah, I’m the one that won, the one they picked!” and getting a little bit of an attitude. So you don’t want that to happen
You want to remain humble and remain just who you are. You were given the promotion or selected for the job probably because of your skills and the way you’re able to work with others so you don’t want that to change. You don’t want that to go to your head and now be thinking of yourself as being so much greater than everybody else.
2. Don’t Be Afraid to Act Like A Manager. You are the manager, supervisor, or the vice president, and you need to step into that role. For some people can be a bit hard. You may be thinking, I’m trying to be humble but yet still need to be the “boss”. To help with this, especially in the beginning, set your expectations and share them with those you manage. You can be both. You can humbly do that.
3. Don’t Pretend You Have All The Answers. Now, I know you all know this, but I see it so often… when we move into those new roles we’re feeling like we got promoted because we have all the answers.
No, that’s probably not why you were promoted. You probably were promoted because you’re really good at what you do, you’re really great with other people, and the other people respect you. It’s not about having all the answers. Get off of that horse, you don’t need that one.
4. Get To Know The People and Let Them Get to Know You. This is easier, obviously, if you’re moving into a position where you know a lot of the people. However, even if you know a lot of them, take the time to get together with them, because now your relationship changed a little bit. You want to be more interested in their career goals. What’s important to them, what do they need from you to be successful.
It’s a different type of conversation than you probably were having before. Make sure and sit down with each person, find out who they are, what motivates them, what excites them about their job, what are their career goals and so forth.
5. Harness the Collective Power of the Group. This one I see a lot too as we tend to move into managerial, leadership roles. Whatever type of role we move into, we tend to take on the whole burden ourselves. A lot of times thinking again, that since we were chosen for the position then it’s our responsibility to perform and to make sure that the team performs.
Yeah, that’s true. But you’re not doing all the work. You’re not carrying that whole burden. Take that sack off your back, throw it down on the floor and spread it out with everybody else. Say, “Hey, this is what’s expected of us. This is what’s I’m expecting of you. What do we want to do here? How do we want to work together? How do we want to divvy up this load?” Again, share that burden with others.
6. Understand Individual Differences. In other words, respect diversity. You really do want to have a variety of opinions, perspectives and so forth on your team and you want to honor those differences.
When you have variety then you’re probably going to have much more balanced synergy. You’re going to able to come up with more ideas when you’re making decisions as a group because you have so many different perspectives and opinions that are being brought in.
You really want to respect that diversity. Trying to find the differences, what each person brings, especially if you don’t know the person very well, can be difficult. Some people may hold back out of respect, especially if it is counter to your opinion or ideas. Again, you want to create space for and honor those differences of opinions. Even if it’s goes against what you believe in. I’m not saying you have to agree with everyone else’s opinion. I’m saying you need to hold the space for everyone’s ideas and thoughts to be expressed, discussed, explored if necessary. People want to know their thoughts and ideas are valuable. It’s not about if they are right…it’s about being heard and respected.
7. Identify The Most Important Goals of the Department. This is going to be really important and like I had said earlier when you first come in you want to make sure as soon as possible to set your expectations. Not only what can people expect from you but also helping them to understand what you see are the priorities. Sitting down and saying, “Okay, here’s what I see are our priorities and what we need to get done. These are our most important goals,” to help them understand that that’s what you are expecting.
Now, again, some people may differ on and not agree, that’s okay, that’s another conversation, but the point being in this particular aspect is that the previous manager, supervisor may not have looked at it the same way. You may be bringing in a different perspective and they need to get on board. You want them to get on board as quickly as possible so everybody has a shared vision, shared goals and they understand what’s expected of them.
8. Manage Your Stress. There’s two things that I have found that will keep managers or supervisors from being promoted and will pretty much cap their career. One of them is their ability to manage stress. The second one is their ability to be productive and good with time management. Because what happens is let’s say you finally get all that down where you’re at, if you’re good at it, then you usually get promoted.
When you get promoted now your stress level goes up because, guess what, the level of intensity of your problems just got bigger. In addition, your ability to manage your time within this new role just got more complicated.
It’s really important to practice right now some stress reduction. What are some ways that you keep yourself from getting stressed out? And, also start thinking about productivity. Check out my show on productivity to get additional tips and tools.
8. Respect Long Standing Employees. Again, you want to honor and respect those people who have earned recognition for their tenure. These people hold a lot of history and a lot of knowledge. You want to make sure and respect and honor that.
9. Bridge The Generational Divide. I have a show on this one, the generational differences, and if you’re not sure what I mean by bridging that generational divide go to that show because you want to bring in and make everybody feel welcome.
Sometimes, depending on your organization, there could be a really big gap between ages. You could be working with 23 year-olds on your team and also have 69 year olds, and so how do you ensure that everybody feels welcome, that everybody feels like a contributor.
That was number 10. We’re going to take a break and them I’m going to do my last five. You are listening to the Meisha Rouser Show here on KKNW live in Seattle and we will be right back after this break.
COMMERCIAL
Meisha: Hello everybody! Welcome back to the Meisha Rouser Show where we are talking about leadership and professional development. Our topic today is when you are a new supervisor or manager or vice president, whatever. In other words, you’ve just moved up in the ranks into a new position.
We are going over my top 15 list of things to think about regarding what you want to do within those first few days or when you first move in to that position. We were on number 10. So leaving number 10, going to number11.
11. Seek A Mentor. Finding a mentor is helpful in so many different ways. One, as you move up the hierarchy in the corporate chain you’re going to find your relationship with the peers that you had down at the lower level is changing and it does.
In fact, if we have time we’ll go into that a little bit. You’re not hanging out with your co-workers like you used to if you just got promoted. Because of that you’re, in a sense, finding new co-workers and people at your new level to be able to talk with and share with and so forth.
Sometimes it really helps in this transition to have a mentor. It can be somebody in your company that you really respect, that maybe is a little higher level than you that you can reach out to. It could be finding somebody in another organization. There’s a lot of different ways to find a mentor but I would highly recommend doing that.
12. Establish Credibility. I am going to have a show on this one too about how do we establish credibility, this one is really hard to do. I mean, it’s pretty simple, but it’s also something that you really need to pay attention to.
A couple of tips really quick on how to establish credibility. One, do what you say and say what you do. Be authentic about things. Show respect. If anything else, if you can just remember to be respectful to everybody else. Treat others how you want to be treated. Better yet, treat others better than you would like to be treated, could really help build your credibility.
13. Be Confident in Your Team’s Abilities. When you can hold the space that you know your team is going to excel then they’re going to do great. In fact, I was just thinking about this. My husband has just been brought in as a head football coach for a high school team and they just got back from doing some spring training. It’s the first time they all got together and they attended a football camp. One of the things that he established with them is that we’re not going to put a lot of rules on you guys. We respect you and we want you guys to be respectful to us. You guys are grown up. You can make your own decisions. We are not going to be putting a lot of rules together until you force us to. Again, making them owners and putting the ownership on them. The same type of idea then is to be confident in your team’s abilities.
14. Manage Your Time Wisely. Remember I was saying, there’s two things that will keep people from moving up in their career: managing stress their personal productivity. If they can’t learn to manage their own stress and productivity when the heat is on, they are limiting their career potential.
In the beginning, as quickly as you can, you want to figure out what are your new priorities, how are you managing your time. It’s probably going to be totally different than in your previous position. Because, as you move up in management, your role just became more important and your problems became larger.
15. Network. Network. Network. Building your internal and external network is so important for a number of reasons. One, it’s going to help you create allies to help you get things done, especially when you can create networks between peers from other department and so forth. It’s also great when you can connect outside of the organization. So many benefits, not only for your career but for your team, for your ability to get things done.
Those were my 15 tips for new managers and supervisors. Not as if that wasn’t enough for one show but I am also going to add in here the seven mistakes leaders make when promoted. Regardless of if you consider yourself a seasoned manager or leader or brand new into a leadership role, keep these things in mind during your first few months in the new position.
1. You’re Still Trying To Do Things Yourself. I have a great example of this from a person I was coaching at a company I was on retainer for and they got moved up into a vice president level. All of a sudden he forgot that no you don’t need to do it all yourself. You need to support other people and empower other people. As we say at the Nofsinger Group, leadership is the ability to enable others to act.
In this case, he kept thinking he had to do it all himself because he’s now a vice president. No, you do not have to still try to do it all yourself. You do not have to have all the answers. You have a wonderful group to rely on and they’re intelligent. Rely on them, lean on them and share the burden.
2. Focusing on Details Rather Than Goals. This is where we get caught up in the weeds and we’re not really focusing on the priorities. Are you clear on what your priorities are? Do you know where you’re going, where your team is going, where the organization is going? Are you in alignment with that or are you mucking around with a bunch of details or a bunch of things that are just busy work. Catch yourself on this. We do this especially in the beginning because we feel so overwhelmed that we tend to mistake the details for the goals. Just a little check for you.
3. Imitating Others. A lot of times we get promoted into a new position and there’s all this kind of power, authority, and pressure to perform, so that we are like, “Oh my gosh, I need to be more like so and so.” That can be okay but you still want to be who you are authentically.
You really want to watch emulating too many other people. It’s fine to bring in their characteristics and values, but it’s hard when we’re trying to fill the shoes of the previous manager by being just like them. It’s probably not going to happen. Don’t even try to fill those shoes. Be uniquely who you are. Which, by the way, means being clear on your values, principals, and priorities.
4. Making Promises You Can’t Keep. It’s so easy to do this when you first get into the role because you’re thinking, “Oh yes, I’m so excited! I can do that. I can do this. I will do that.” We do it all the time. Please watch yourself. What promises, or commitments, are you making? Now, it’s okay to maybe say, “I intend to do these types of things. I need to get into the role and spend some time there, but if I can do this I would love to.” Just watch what you’re committing to.
5. Missing Out on Early Wins. What I mean by this one is there’s kind of that 90-day rule. This varies, but its roughly 90-days that you are either under a microscope, or are left to free range out in the pastures. Remember that when you started in this position you have the leadership team who picked you, and they want to be proven that their decision was a correct one.
They thought you’re the one that can do this so you usually have more leeway those first 90 days. They may not agree with what you are doing, but they are sitting back watching to see if they made the right choice or not, and usually want to give you the benefit of the doubt. So they’re going to give you a little more leeway to see, what are you doing with this? What can you do? So, take advantage of those early wins. Take advantage of being able to maybe take a few more risks that you might not be able to get away with later. Just keep in mind if they back fire then that’s not a good thing either but, you as long as you own it, you probably have room to take a little more risk than usual.
6. Refusing to Make Decisions. Now think about yourself in the past… have you not been in a position where you had a manager, or supervisor get promoted and they can’t make a decision to save their lives. Instead they seem to be in analysis paralysis, “What do you think? What’s the department think? I’m still trying to figure it out.” It’s like, “Dude, we need you to make a decision. We just got to move forward please.” Yes, you want to watch making hasty decisions, especially if you’re not sure what is the history and are trying to figure out the lay of the land. But, there are things you need to pay attention to and make decisions on. It is best to ask those around you for their views and opinions, then do something with them. You can always adjust down the road…so start moving down that road.
7. Holding Back. Too worried about making mistakes and so forth. If you were waffling between should I take the risk or not. If you’re in your first 90 days, I would go for it. Again, that’s probably when you have the most leniency so don’t hold back. Try it, let people know, “Hey, I’m not sure if this is going to work but I really think it might and I would love to give it a try.”
Those are some tips for you for when you are a new manager and some mistakes you want to watch for when you move into a new leadership role.
I was trying to get through that a little quickly because there’s one more aspect I want to share that you will face when you take on a new leadership role. And, that is understanding that you are going to be tested.
What I mean by this is that your peers, your subordinates, they all basically want to know what you are made of, who are you, what are going to be your expectations, what are your boundaries. And, we do this subconsciously, it’s just human nature. We want to know what we can expect.
In the beginning you may have people showing up late for meetings. Others may start to slack off or want to start to do things a little bit differently. Usually they’re not showing up late for the meeting thinking, “I’m going to show up late because I can. I have a new boss.” It’s more of thinking, “I’m running late, I don’t know how this new boss is going to react. Maybe he’s going to be okay with me running late.” They’re just testing your boundaries.
Don’t take this personally. It’s human nature. It’s kind of like when you were a kid and you got a new babysitter, how much did you try to get away with that first day? “Oh yeah, my dad says I can watch more TV if I eat all of my dinner.” You’re just testing her to see what you can get away with it. “Yeah I could stay up late if I’m reading,” or whatever. So know that’s happening with you too.
What you can do then to help is to make sure, and I emphasized this earlier, to set and communicate your expectations. Let other people know what to expect of you and what you’re expecting of them. To do so is going to require that you get really clear on who you are as a person, and a leader.
This goes back to, on one hand, understanding who we are in our own professional development and our own personal growth. And, on the other hand, to rely on our tools and techniques. And, of course keeping aware of what’s going on in the environment.
Going back to just understanding who you are. The more you can understand what your values are, your principles, what you stand by, then that’s going to help everybody else understand who you are. And that’s going to help everybody else get comfortable with you quickly because now they’re no longer in this gray area of wondering what to expect? What do you stand for? What are you expecting of me?
When people react and start pushing back when you’re a new leader it’s because they’re just trying to get some stability in their life again. The instability is not quite sure of who are you and how it’s going to be working with you. So, the sooner you can establish all of that will make a huge difference.
I hope this was helpful for you. I know it was a lot.
You have been listening to the Meisha Rouser Show. Thank you so much for listening. I really appreciated it. I’m here, coaching you towards success and wishing you all a great day.