Important Dos and Don’ts for New Managers

Transitioning into any new role can be challenging. If that new role is a managerial one, the challenges can be even more daunting. You may now be tasked with overseeing your former peers, some of them working in-person while others work remotely. You may now also need to communicate more directly with

superiors or set realistic targets that will be appealing to both those groups.

You’ve been promoted because you know how to do the job, but do you have any experience managing people? Do you know how to build a team? How to juggle collaboration with your superiors and with your new subordinates?

No matter how many people you lead, or whether you’re working in-person, remote, or hybrid, you can succeed if you make sure to remember a few important dos and don’ts.

DO: Be a Leader, Not a Boss

Joel Silverstone makes an interesting point in his webinar, How to Be a Leader, Not a Boss. Research has shown that a person’s manager has more of an impact on their mental health than their doctor, therapist, or partner! In other words, the way you are perceived by your staff can have a lasting impact on them.

How does your staff see you? What kind of impact are you having? If you aren’t sure, or want to have a positive leadership presence, what can you do?

For starters, you can listen to this fascinating webinar here for some more insights and valuable pointers. We also offer a vital course for all new managers here. It’s entitled, Be a Leader, Not a Boss – Managing in the Modern Workplace, and it contains some outstanding lessons that will help you recognize the responsibilities you have to yourself, your team, and your organization.

DON’T: Shy Away from Giving Feedback

An essential part of your role is to help your team grow and develop, but the only way to do that is by giving them feedback. For many of us, this is perhaps one of the most difficult aspects of managing other people. Yes, feedback is hard. Yes, it’s awkward. BUT it must be done.

Learn to understand the key behaviours needed to deliver feedback while preserving professional relationships. Here, too, we offer an excellent free webinar to help you – Give Feedback Like a Leader, Not Like a Critic.

DO: Put Boundaries in Place

This is an important reminder. Set boundaries with your time. Don’t take on too much because you’re excited about your role.

If you were promoted within the company, your relationships with your former peers are going to change. So, the way you interact at work is also going to change. You may need to readjust some of the former boundaries you had with your peers.

DON’T: Think It’s All on You – You Can Delegate!

While you are still responsible for many tasks, you can’t spend all your time “in the weeds”, so to speak. You need to delegate so that you can focus on the high-level strategic tasks that you were promoted to do.

Delegating is much more than simply asking somebody else to take on a task. Delegating could be said to include at least three different factors:

• Reduce your workload
• Retain respect as a leader
• Help your employees develop useful skills

Microsoft 365 has some fantastic tools to help you. For example, you can take advantage of a daily planner, manage your to do list online, share that list with others, and break down tasks into simpler steps.

If you’d like more information on some of the things you can do with Microsoft To Do, Planner, and Teams, watch Christine Irons present a free webinar on those Microsoft 365 features here.

DO: Recognize the Importance of Training and Building Your Skills

Do you remember that point made in Joel Silverstone’s webinar, mentioned above? It was about being a leader, not a boss. It was stated that managers have a huge impact on the mental health of their staff.

A new Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM)[i] survey finds 84 percent of U.S. workers say poorly trained managers create a lot of unnecessary work and stress.

Among the survey’s findings:

• Nearly 6 in 10 American workers (57 percent) believe managers in their workplace could benefit from training on how to be better people managers.
• Half of American workers (50 percent) believe it would help them improve their own work performance if their direct supervisor’s people management skills were improved.
• Over one-third of American workers (41 percent) believe their direct manager could benefit from additional training in communication skills. Other areas for improvement include training and developing their teams (cited by 38 percent of respondents); time management, delegation and prioritizing (37 percent); managing team performance (35 percent); and cultivating a positive and inclusive team culture (35 percent).

Those statistics are at once astonishing and a little frightening. We can’t understate the importance of managers training and building their own skills. Look for those professional skills training classes that will help you develop the necessary people management and communication skills.

DON’T: Think You Need to Do It Alone

At The Great Canadian Training and Consulting Company, we offer a wide range of courses and learning packages to help you every step of the way. We can show you a clear path to becoming a GREAT leader.

Take a look at just some of our Professional Leadership Skills Training courses. These courses run from 1.5 hours to 6 hours. Learn how to manage:

1. Your time
2. Your people
3. Your stress
4. Your meetings

With just a little bit of time you can receive a lot of gain. Just one six-hour course could be enough to change your career forever. The right combination of these courses could allow you to not only succeed, but to succeed brilliantly.

If you’re interested in combining both technical and professional skills training in one short package, then our GREAT series of courses is exactly what you need. In just one day, you can learn both the technical and the professional skills needed to master presenting, producing, or team building. You can learn more about these training packages here: GREAT Series: Greater Skills for Greater Performance.

All our leadership and performance courses have customizable objectives, are led by live instructors, and are guaranteed to run.

"Not only succeed, but succeed brilliantly"

[i] https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/people-managers/pages/workers-think-managers-need-more-training-.aspx