BNET columnist Jessica Stillman recently shared some reactions she got from readers to a blog she wrote on What’s the First Thing New Managers Need to Learn? The original posting prompted so many responses that Stillman offered up a second column on the subject aimed at sharing some of the ways that recently promoted managers could avoid “new manager syndrome.” According to Stillman, here are some of the symptoms that afflict the under-trained management newbie:
- Providing reports with too much “helpful” advice.
- Trying to show confidence by refusing to admit weaknesses or mistakes.
- Missing the mark with recognition through overdone or meaningless kudos to staff.
- Working 12-hour days to complete all work individually, instead of delegating.
You can read the complete second posting—plus see up-to-date additional comments by readers, at Readers Diagnose “New Management Syndrome,” Offer Cures
For additional thoughts on the challenges new managers face and some of the ways to meet these challenges successfully, be sure to check out two past articles featuring The Ken Blanchard Companies Madeleine Homan-Blanchard. Madeleine is co-founder of Coaching Services and she shares her thoughts on the challenges new managers face in an article entitled First Time Manager: It’s Not Just about You Anymore and is featured in a second article for new managers on Providing Feedback and Direction.
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Working for a company that almost exclusively promotes from within, we see this challenge constantly. They are not promoted within the same team so there are some dynamics of what their previous Leaders and their new Leaders differentiate as important. It’s not so much the tasks at hand, just priorities and how to do them. Secondly, most “new” Leaders really do not learn their Leadership skills until after they start their new position. A large misconception is that just because someone “became” a Leader, their direct reports just assume that New Leader knows exactly what they are doing. Situational Leadership is not just for Direct Reports, but for anyone taking on a new role or large task they haven’t done before so it creates a false sense of “they’ve got this” and they often times are left to crash and burn. Lastly, I think operations and expectations become so ominous and overwhelming, we forget to focus on 3 pillars that drive any organization: People, Products and Processes. We have to “uncomplicate” what’s really expected of the new Leader and give them benchmarks and understanding to review with them at 30, 60, 90 and 180 days.