Popular Pitfalls of New Managers
“I’m a new manager and want to avoid the common pitfalls. What should I be on the lookout for?”
I was asked this yesterday, but it crops up often. Almost everyone has experienced a Bad Manager - and none of us wants to be that leader.
Yet, apparently many of us are exactly that.
Back to yesterday’s conversation. Off the top of my head, I shared three things managers inadvertently do that drive their people to Glassdoor:
Assume your team likes to be managed the way you like to be managed. ‘I always give direct, tough feedback because if it were me, I’d want to know where I was going wrong and to act quickly.’ Others might, too, but not everyone - and your employee might react better to a different approach. So, long before you’re meting out feedback, ask them, How do you like to communicate? What’s the best way for you to hear constructive criticism? You can’t tailor everything, but you can meet people in the middle.
Fail to give feedback or waiting until end-of-year review season to do so. “Let my colleague know they’re doing a bad job” often falls to the bottom of a to-do list or gets skipped over entirely. And understandably - in the moment, few of us want to rain on a person’s parade. But bad news doesn’t get better with age - and, done well, feedback is truly a gift. (And Psst - positive feedback can be a boon to motivation.)
Accidentally micro-manage. Strong performers are usually promoted into leadership. But strong performers are also more likely to say “It’s quicker if I do it myself”, “Here’s how I’d do it (aka the best and only way),” or “Why don’t you just watch me do this and then you can try it later yourself (but actually never letting that happen).” Pay attention to how much you’re getting involved in the day-to-day work of your team. There are circumstances that demand a hands-on approach, but these should be the exception rather than the rule.
What would you add? Do you recognize yourself in any of these examples? I sometimes micro-manage when projects feel “higher stakes” - but I’m working on it.
Ellie Hearne is a leadership-communications expert and founder of Pencil or Ink. She has worked with Apple, Google, Kate Spade, Marriott, Mastercard, Morgan Stanley, Oracle, Pfizer, Piaget, Spotify, Starbucks, and Twitter, among others, and has coached numerous individuals and teams. She holds a Master’s from the University of St Andrews and is studying Organisational Leadership at Oxford University’s Saïd Business School. She’s been quoted in The New York Times and the Irish Times on workplace communications and in Business Insider on entrepreneurship.