The New Manager: ZERO or HERO

I was a terrible first-time manager. The company had to demote me. It felt terrible to be a failure and let others down. My manager never helped prepared me to manage because "it's your responsibility to be ready". Neither did he console me when I was demoted because I have to "man up". I did learn two important lessons. I did not want to be like me - a manager who did not know how to lead. And I did not want to be like my manager, who did not know how to care.

Later I got lucky. Worked with some fantastic managers who showed me what good managers look like. What you are about to read is dedicated to them and all the new managers in the world.

From SUPER Contributor to ZERO Manager. Johnny was a top-notch salesman. His success was driven by an unsurpassed work ethic and an uncanny ability to understand what customers want and need. His jovial personality coupled with sterling results made him very popular with peers and higher-ups.

Subsequently, management decided to make him a manager, leading a seven-person team. While Johnny was elated with the promotion, he soon found that leading people was not easy. They don’t always deliver what you ask. The less experienced members of his team tried hard but they did not know the products nor had a good handle on their customers. The experienced members pose a different challenge. Johnny has been teaching them new ways of selling but they either find it hard to master the technique or rather keep on selling the product their own way.

For an increasingly frustrated Johnny, the solution is to stick to what has made him successful thus far. In other words, he will sell more by working harder, smarter and longer. He hopes the team will see what he does and copy him.

Johnny type stories typically end like this: :

Johnny picks up the slack and through an enormous effort, continues to get results for team sales. Management rewards his achievement with more leadership responsibility. He now has a bigger team to manage with an expanded product portfolio. His response is to use his proven approach‐ work harder and harder, smarter and smarter, longer and longer. Eventually, he recognizes that his efforts are not enough to carry the team. He is physically and emotionally drained. His team is in no better shape ‐ their confidence is down, their relationships with each other fractured and their personal growth stunted by lack of a positive role model. So ZERO win for Johnny and ZERO win for the team.

Getting The Right Belief and Ability. The journey of Johnny as an individual contributor to a new manager is well documented. Anthropologists call this a rite of passage while management consultants label this a “leadership transition”. Many organizations think that smart, hardworking and high performing people will figure out the “secrets” of managing a team. However what many fail to realize is that they have been reinforcing beliefs that actually make it more difficult for their individual contributors to be successful new managers.

Think about it- Individual contributors are earmarked for management positions because they consistently get results through their ingenuity and hard work. So for individual contributors, this belief of “counting on me” is something they will turn to when things are not quite right. This belief is reinforced by management. Johnny’s superior sales result is rewarded with praise, increasing responsibilities, and a fatter paycheck. However, what makes Johnny successful as a salesman will not carry him when he is a manager. As a new manager, Johnny’s success is dependent on getting the best out of his team. This means he needs to shift his belief from “me” to “us”. Hence, when his people come to him with problems, he should view this not as interruptions but that helping them is his job. And the way he goes about this is not fixing problems for them but teaching them how to fix it through coaching.

And this brings me to the next point ability. Having the right belief is only one part of the equation. Johnny also needs a skill set which is different from what has made him successful in the past. Growing teams is the key role of a new manager, any manager. So new managers need the ability to 1. set goals that encourage both individual and team excellence. They also need to 2. interview and select the'right' people for the team – people who have the right skills and mindset to be successful together. Managers also need 3. coaching, feedback and team building skills to help employees leverage their strengths and minimize weaknesses plus teach them how to get more from each other through teamwork and collaboration.

Pay attention to your Team NOW. Karen Dillion, the former HBR editor, reminds us just how much pressure a new manager has to go through. "The average baboon looks up at the alpha male every 30 seconds or so to see what he is doing. We do the same thing when we've been promoted, constantly looking up to make sure our boss is seeing and approving of us, which means we’re paying less attention to the people we’re now leading". But this is the time for new managers to pay less attention to their boss and more to their team. Their manager already thinks well of them- that's why they got promoted. But team members are looking at their every move for clues. What kind of manager is she? Does she know what she is doing? Can I count on her for help? Does she care about my career?

A new manager must lead the team by building trust. Leaders earn trust when their people feel safe, that they are being developed and they are being fairly assessed. Then oxytocin, a hormone, and neurotransmitter that increases the propensity for people to trust is released in the brain. But if people do not know their new manager, the reverse happens- the release of oxytocin is impeded and people grown uncertain, feel isolated and trust less. 

A Final Word: Advice from Jack Welch. Welch talks about leaders who "desperately want to give raises, to promote people" because they get as much satisfaction from other people's success as they did their own. "Take care of your people, let them know where they stand, cheer them, never take credit for what they do, and they'll go to the moon for you." Leaders who do this have - what Welch calls - the "generosity gene." He reminds all managers, new and old that, "Once you're in charge of people, it's no longer about you -- it's about your team. Any leader who still thinks it's about him is destined to fail."

Thanks for reading!