From Novice to Pro: Top Tips for a New Manager's Successful Journey
Whether you’re looking for one-on-one questions to ask employees during performance reviews, or you’re trying to find the right activities to run during a team offsite, establishing yourself as a new manager is no easy feat. It takes active listening, a willingness to hear feedback, and more than anything, it requires a lot of patience.
As a new manager, you’re in a vital seat at your organization. You serve as a conduit for trust-building and insight-gathering, and according to a Gallup study, new managers account for at least 70 percent of the variance in employee engagement levels.
While your own success as a manager impacts your own career trajectory, it also has a direct influence on the overall performance of your team members, as well as your organization at large.
In this article, I’ll break down a few new manager tips so you can easily transition from newbie to seasoned pro and set yourself up for success.
1. First things first: Find a mentor
Okay, the first order of business as a new manager is to find yourself a mentor, and fast. According to a survey by the American Society for Training and Development, three quarters of managers credit their success to mentors. What’s more, another study found that 90 percent of employees who have a career mentor are happy at work.
As a new manager, you’re signing on to be accountable for work not performed by you. Taking on this additional responsibility can feel uncomfortable at first, but with a little wisdom from someone who’s been in your seat before, you can proactively avoid simple mishaps and learn from a reliable source of information who can support you as you begin your journey.
Here are a few actionable tips for finding a mentor:
Look for someone within your organization who is respected and knowledgeable.
Find someone who is willing to take you under their wing – this relationship is a two-way street.
Reach out and schedule a coffee chat or virtual meeting to get a sense of your relationship together.
Should it feel like a good fit, start picking their brain about all things management and leadership!
People love it when you take their advice. If your mentor gives you advice – follow it! Then tell them. They’ll be impressed and this will continue to build a stronger relationship.
Top tip! If you’re struggling to find a mentor within your organization, look externally. There are a lot of networks that offered paid mentors, such as Women in Revenue, Mentor Cruise, or The Forum (women only).
2. Set clear expectations
After all, my famous saying is, clarity creates calm!
Establishing clear lines of communication from the offset gives your team the reassurance they need to speak up when there’s an issue, or to validate others when there’s a success. And in both instances – success or failure – talking is the lynchpin between psychological safety at work and disengagement from the job.
As we all well know, today’s employees seek personal value and purpose at work. They want deeper connections, more flexibility and a shared purpose to rally around. By setting clear expectations, you can ensure everyone is brought into a shared vision and successfully develop a high-performance team that continues to shine, time and time again.
Here are a few actionable tips to help you set clear expectations:
Ensure the expectations you set with your team are first clear with yourself.
Define what success looks like. I love Rex Miller’s Boat Exercise:
Imagine that there are three groups of people on your rowboat and you are the manager. 30 percent of your team will be at the front of the boat, actively rowing the team to shore. 50 percent of your team will be in the middle of the boat, unsure of what to do. You need to tell them what to do. Then, 20 percent of your team may be intentionally slowing the boat down. Define what front of the boat, middle of the boat, and back of the boat behaviors are for your team.
Provide your rationale and context for setting expectations to increase your team’s accountability for meeting them.
Listen to your team and ensure they’re able to provide their own working expectations.
Regularly check-in with your team to ensure standards are upheld and expectations are continuously met.
3. Take advantage of one-on-one meetings
Among the myriad tools at your disposal, none are as potent as the one-on-one meeting. Open and honest conversations with your direct reports are a cornerstone of leadership excellence. Not only do they improve morale, they also increase productivity and enhance your relationships with key team members.
In many instances, you get out of one-on-one meetings what you put into them. For your team, it's a way to discuss professional growth opportunities and safely talk about workplace challenges. For you, it’s a chance to take the temperature of your team and effectively steer individuals towards achieving performance targets. More importantly, you can use this time to regularly solicit feedback so that, as a new manager, you’re able to continuously improve.
Here are a few tips for running effective one-on-one meetings with your team:
Set a clear agenda and take clear notes.
Schedule meetings at a time and place that works not only for you, but also for the individual you’re meeting.
Refer to previous meetings to track and report on progress over time.
Most importantly – Listen first, and lead second.
4. Delegate, delegate, delegate
One of the hardest things to learn as a new manager is how to effectively delegate. There are many reasons why this is the case. For example, new managers might:
Feel guilty about adding more work onto another employee’s to-do list.
Lack confidence in who they need to transfer the project to.
Think it would take longer to explain the task than actually completing it themselves.
Believe that they’re the only ones who can do the job right.
Have no idea where to even start! (And that’s okay – you didn’t go to delegation school.)
Effective delegation is arguably the most vital component when trying to build a safe and trusted team. As a new manager, it’s a vital tool that encourages autonomy and flexibility over how work is performed (remember above when we stated that today’s employees want more flexibility?), and it helps to foster creativity and a sense of ownership.
Here are a few helpful tips to overcome the barriers to delegation:
Create a RACI so everybody knows who is doing what.
Set clear timelines so everybody knows when tasks and projects are due.
Only delegate tasks that align with an individual’s skills and interests.
Be sure to explain the bigger picture and how the delegated task contributes to the team’s goals.
Make yourself available for questions and guidance, but avoid micromanaging.
Schedule regular updates to monitor progress, provide feedback, and offer support.
Acknowledge and appreciate the hard work your team applies to tasks.
Encourage employees to feedback on how you delegate tasks.
If mistakes occur, use them as opportunities for growth and learning.
From newbie manager to seasoned pro
By no means is the above list of tips exhaustive. While helpful, there are many other things to consider as you begin your management journey. For example, team SMART goals are a great way to track performance. Learning the art of politely saying “no” is critical for ruthless prioritization. Even something as simple as acknowledging a change in team dynamics is a critical component of clear and open communication.
The above list, however, provides you with a great starting point. Leaning on a mentor, setting clear expectations, leveraging one-on-one relationships and learning to delegate will undoubtedly empower you to navigate this exciting adventure with confidence so you can emerge as a seasoned and professional leader.
To learn more about becoming a new manager, explore my tactical training program for