Taking The First Step Right!

Being a first-time manager is one of the most important professional milestones, no matter the field. With this promotion comes great prestige, but it also brings with it unforeseen complications and new responsibilities. While years of working as an individual contributor or going through a rigorous curriculum at business school may help in understanding some aspects of being a manager, there are times when first-time managers can be caught unawares and find it hard to adapt to their new role.

Defining Boundaries

Due to the advent of social and professional networking sites like Facebook, LinkedIn etc., the very thin line between personal and professional spaces is getting blurrier by the day. For first-time managers, and more commonly for first-time managers who have been promoted internally, the inability to define proper boundaries between them and their team members has been a major issue affecting their professional judgement.

A by-product of this issue is the complaint of favouritism that can be levelled against the manager if they go for breaks with only particular team members or are closer to some team members as compared to others. This often leads to damaging the team morale and overall team efficiency.

Interaction With The Team?

One of the biggest challenges for first-time managers is the manner in which they interact with their team and the way they can act as an effective bridge between the team and the senior management, while also keeping their personal feelings and interactions with the senior management out of the conversations with the team.

One such example of this would be the general venting interactions that can happen between colleagues. However, while this is a recurring activity between colleagues at the same level, a manager is expected to avoid this activity as it can often place the team members in conflicting situations and the motivation to get the work done might also be negatively affected.

Feedback To Team?

Giving feedback to the team members is always a hard task, whether you are new to the company or especially if you were promoted from within a close-knit team. While the sense of familiarity may help in getting your feedback and message across, the fact that you have outperformed and/or out-qualified them to become managers is always an issue that might prevent this from happening smoothly.

In cases like this, it is always important to be as transparent as possible and take the team along through constructive criticism rather than the more brutal destructive option. Even if you disagree with their point of view, thinking through the pros and cons and laying it out for the team is often the best way to go forward.

Providing Guidance To The Team

Being a good team leader does not just mean successfully managing your team to deliver results for your clients. One often overlooked part is the guidance that needs to be given to the team members whether for helping them reach their professional goals and equipping them with the necessary skills to step into your shoes and ensure business continuity.

Being A Calming Presence Under Pressure

While a great number of movies and TV shows have shown us numerous circumstances where managers and team leaders manage to get their teams through high-pressure situations through rousing and awe-inspiring speeches, in real-life the ability to remain calm and make your team feel secure and motivated is often the difference between a good manager and a great manager.

As you must have guessed by now, being a first-time manager can be extremely tricky and even under the best of circumstances, it can often throw completely unanticipated challenges.

In order to make sure that your first-time managers are fully equipped for all these challenges and much more surely to come as a result of the rapidly evolving nature of working, contact our world-class facilitators at Able Ventures and get free demo access to our F1 Bootcamp for first-time managers.