The Mindset Shift: How to become a good new manager
You’d probably be excited about your new gig. Becoming a successful manager (a leader of other individual contributors) can be deceptively difficult. The transition is precarious. Research shows going from an individual performer to a manager is one of the most difficult and stressful times in a career. But there are a lot of managers doing it so well. And what’s the secret? Becoming a new manager isn’t merely a change in your responsibilities and schedules but it’s a change in how you think. It’s your mindset that changes.
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Micromanaging Will Reap Micro-Results
Everyone knows the term: micromanagement. For the uninitiated, micromanagers are those leaders who try have excessive control on their employees. Micromanagement is not considered the best form of management as it is demoralizing for an employee. For new managers, it can sometimes be difficult to find when to be in the leading role and when to let go of the day-to-day tasks. You can easily slip into the process of micromanagement, if you’re not careful.
If you are a micromanager:
- Change your attitude
- Advise, don’t dictate
- Let your employees get on their work
- Believe in winning
- Interact with the employees
- Encourage your employees to approach you with their problems
- Hold your employees accountable
- Stop nitpicking
Your team needs to be sure that their manager trusts them to handle whatever comes up resulting in two-fold benefit: Your team’s confidence will be strengthened and you can move on to the larger area to expand the business.
Takeaway: Remember, trust is a two-way street: Your employees should be able to trust you as much as you trust them.
Organize Your Team (And Their Work)
When putting your team together, you should know which people can work together well. You will need to create a formalized process that get things done in an organized way. This could include a productivity tool, empower people to make decisions, setting a clear chain of solutions, and strategic planning. Set clear boundaries to bring the process in place. Break up the work and make it do in an organized way. Get insights from your team members how they want it to go so the work is done in an organized way. You can give a trial to a project management system to segregate tasks, set priorities, and become insanely organized. Throughout the process, keep in mind that your first go at organizing the team won’t go perfectly.
Ideas to Try: If you need some sort of ideas, consider the following options:
- Project management software, like ProofHub, can be a great pick to sort and assign tasks, set deadlines, and know who is doing what.
- Create a schedule of the team and individual meetings.
- Group chat software, like Yammer, can also help to communicate and collaborate privately with your teams.
Manage by Trust, Not by Fear
Don’t be the leader who’d say, “I manage my team through fear.” When the managers treat their employees badly, it’s mostly because they themselves are in state of fear. Managers who use their position to control their team instead of empowering them are doing it wrong and should actually fear losing their employees. And of course, the business cannot afford to lose employees due to untrained managers.
Change Your Focus
The crazy thing about being a manager is not about you anymore. Your foremost effort should be to help other people accomplish the tasks in a great way rather than to just accomplish your tasks. For the first-time managers, this can be a little difficult but it’s crucial. This means, you should maximize the performance of your team because if your team fails, you fail. And when they succeed, share the credit with the rest of the group.
Good Managers Are Born; Great Managers Are Taught
Managers should be in a position of power to polish their skills to manage and this talent is all they need to become a great manager. No one is a born actor, doctor or engineer, neither are managers. Maybe you’re born with the talent, but without proper training, those talents would be ineffective. If all the knowledge is acquired, you will surely excel greatly as a manager.
A Mindful Approach to How You Manage Your Time
“Mindfulness about how we spend our time is so important, because how we spend our hours is how we spend our lives.” Your time has always been valuable, but now that you are striving towards being a successful manager you have to be mindful of how you invest it. Time management becomes even more important when you are a manager. Your daily grind will consume all of your time if you aren’t careful. Schedule your time to support your team, prioritize your work, review performance, monitor budget, overcome procrastination, time management tool, and minimize distractions. When you manage your time, you can promote accountability and ensure deadlines are never missed.
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The Takeaway
As a manager, you need to be far more open-minded, or your employees are going to hate you enough. As a manager, it’s more about what you can inspire others to do to hit even bigger goals. All that takes is a change in your attitude (from an individual contributor to a manager). The faster you can make that switch, the more effective the manager you’ll be. Your relationships now take on a more professional turn. However, embrace these mindset shifts, you’ll be a great manager!
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