Five Things For New Leaders To Think About

People do sometimes ask what advice I would give about managing people to individuals that are new to the role. When I think about it there are probably 5 key things that I would suggest you take on board as a first time manager when looking at how you interact with a new team. In many respects these are more about leadership than management as I also believe that managing people is a process we should all be able to complete, whereas leading people is an art.

When looking at this I would also suggest you think about the great leaders you have worked for or aspired to work for in organisations and think about what made them great leaders, you will probably find they exhibited some, if not all, of these traits.

Always start with respect: I suppose this should be obvious, but experience tells me it isn’t. Any incoming manager will be given a level of respect by the team at the outset, but it will be “provisional”. I say manager here and not leader because initially you will have been put in as a manager and the team will consider you as their manager until you show them you can lead and become the leader. Starting with respect means treating the new team with respect, it means treating with respect the values they may hold now, the culture within the team and the processes they use now. You may way well change the processes and drive a new set of values and a new culture, but you do it with respect and via example and the team will follow. Far easier to have someone follow you than to have to drag them along. In my experience respect grows into loyalty over time and loyalty grows a business faster than money.

I guess there is one caveat here, if there is something that is just not right about the “culture” you inherit you may need to act immediately and I would give this guidance, if something is just plain wrong then act fast, be clear about the who, what and why and move on.

Practice what you preach: Ok, so maybe not rocket science this one and you could also call it “leading from the front” or “never asking anybody to do something you would not do yourself”. I also think this extends across the entire role from how you speak to people, how you tackle issues, and how you deal with both success and failure. I think asking people to behave in a certain way and to do certain tasks to achieve an outcome is an essential element of the coaching part of a leadership role but equally important is that you do those things yourself. “Do as I say not as I do” does not really work in a leadership role.

Always be consistent: This is really a part of how you deliver against the first two points for the team and is one of the hardest to adhere to. When I wrote some notes for this I put down “always try to be consistent” then I thought, no, don’t try, do. How hard this can be was pointed out to me by one of my senior managers. We would have business reviews every second Friday and they told me that always being the last team on the list they could tell how well the rest had gone based on my responses to both good and bad news in their own review.

I was not being consistent. Look at some of the best athletes in sports such as tennis and squash and they start each point in the same way regardless of the match situation, that consistency drives performance and it is the same as a leader. It also aligns to the next point, if your response to a problem, comment or suggestion, is not consistent you may find people stop talking to you. One other thing to bear in mind is that we may not universally love everyone we interact with in our working lives or who is part of our team. I am sure we all know someone we work with, or for, or who works for us who, when their name appears on the phone as an incoming call, we hesitate over the connect button. The trick is to take the call the same as any other and treat them the same as everyone else. I know we all hope that we do, but do we?

Give people a voice and listen to it: To me this is a central part of making sure you have a diverse and inclusion organisation. Diversity and inclusion must always go hand in hand as you can have as diverse an organisation as you like, but unless people feel included, unless YOU as the leader make every individual in your team and wider virtual teams feel included, it does not add any value. Make sure you encourage people to question the status quo, to give their opinions, to offer suggestions. Do not shoot people down when they try, and make the effort to ask those less comfortable with speaking up if they would like to contribute. But “ask” though, don’t “demand”.

One thing I have started doing is to give my team a much longer check in session when we have face to face meetings. This gives everyone some time to talk about how they are feeling about the business, any good news stories they wish to share or issues they are encountering. Over time even those naturally less extroverted or comfortable speaking out have learned it is a safe environment to speak up in.

...and finally

Be prepared to be wrong: As a leader you will have to make decisions, it invariably comes with the territory, you will also form opinions about people, the processes that you use and the directions the business is taking. Being consistent is important here but so is admitting you are wrong, not always easy but essential in my opinion if you are going to become a good leader.

While these are not necessarily the only things to consider when leading a new team, they might help. Like most of these sort of lists and advice, we probably know it anyway just occasionally need to be given a little reminder. Even as I wrote this I was thinking that I should really refocus on some of these things myself and maybe some of my team would say the same but hopefully they would be confident enough to say to my face.

Richard Rawcliffe

Vice President and General Manager, UK Public Sector - Dell Technologies