Many years ago, when I was first promoted to my first line management job I had no idea what I was doing, how to manage, motivate, communicate effectively and what to do when staff don’t like you or respect you.

How do I gain credibility?

It felt a little bit like parenting – thrown in to the deep end and yet even though I hadn’t done this before expected to know how to deal with challenging characters, delegation, motivate and bring the team together.

It felt very lonely, I didn’t think I should discuss my lack of confidence in managing people and felt I had to show up like I knew exactly what I was doing – but how do you know what you don’t know.

If you have never done it before then how can you know?

Managing people effectively was probably the most challenging aspect of my job. I have never experienced this before and soon found myself wondering what the magic formula was to mastering management.

We humans are complex and unique and I certainly started to realise one size does not fit all. Sometimes I did have to learn by trial and error, sometimes I didn’t know the answer and I did needed to ask for help and being authoritarian just wasn’t going to cut it.

Are you in a first-time management role and need help?

Have a look at my Power2Manage Programme which is starting on 29th September.

https://www.power2progress.co.uk/home/services/training/power2manage/

 

Here is what I learnt:

  1. Be humble honest and genuine (it pays off) – knowing what you will bring to the team, knowing your limitation and saying when you don’t know or opening up with your team makes you human and gives permission to the team to do the same. This brings the team together – you are not going to know all the answers to everything and sometimes your team will know more than you – and that’s ok – just because you are the manager it doesn’t mean you have to be the knowledge expert – that’s why you have a team!
  2. Adapt your management style – Ask each individual in your team how they like to be managed and vary your style according to the different personalities – one size doesn’t not fit all. Different people respond to different styles. There may also be different competence levels in your team that need different levels of support.
  3. Delegate – don’t think you have to do everything. Before getting on with a task ask yourself first who is the best person to take this task on, who else could do it? How will this benefit them/you/the team? You want the team to operate successfully without you – that is a sign of a great manager.
  4. Have some fun – make working together fun – we sometimes all get a little bit too serious about things and forget that light hearted playful side of us likes to come out every now and then.
  5. Give timely praise and feedback – when someone does something well – tell them straight away and be specific, when someone is not performing well tell them don’t wait for the right time – the right time is the time it happens. (if you want to find out more about how to have difficult conversation come on our Power2Manage programme https://www.power2progress.co.uk/home/services/training/power2manage/).
  6. Celebrate difference in the team – Don’t expect others to think feel and behave exactly like you, no one is the same. We are all different and have different values and beliefs some people value work life balance so may leave bang on time, others may like staying on after hours, avoid labelling (lazy, hardworking) recognise each team member for what they bring to the team. Just because they are different to you that doesn’t make them any better or less than you.
  7. Create a shared vision and team goal – Have regular team meetings with agenda create a shared vision that the team buy in to involve them in how you want the team to work together and what needs to be delivered and regularly review team performance.
  8. Get a mentor and some management training – We don’t know what we don’t know so always useful to ask someone that has been there and done it and share their experience therefore having a mentor can be really useful.

We only have 2 spaces left on our Management development programme Power2Manage which starts on 29th September so book a discovery call today to see if it’s the right programme for you or your team

https://go.oncehub.com/P2PCovidDiscoveryCall