Your hard work has paid off, and you’re now a first-time manager. Hurray! It’s an exciting, nerve-racking transition. It’s also mired with uncertainty and doubt as you navigate this journey. And chances are, you haven’t received formal training.
So how can you become a good first-time manager? Here are seven tips based on my experience. If you have any other helpful tips, please reach out. I’d love to exchange thoughts and chat.
Really listen
Meetings have always bombarded my schedule, and I typically hear enough to engage. It’s low effort but it works because people love hearing themselves. Don’t do this with your direct reports.
Hearing is passive. Listening is active. Take the words at face value. Pause before interpreting, judging, or evaluating. Stop letting your mind run towards what you’ll say in response. Stop hearing, start listening.
My direct report once told me they were stressed from my micromanagement. I had a ton of thoughts scurry past me at 100 mph: “What the hell? I hate micromanagers. I’ve never asked them what they do with their day. Have they even met other micromanagers? I’ll respond with, ‘I hear you, but I don’t understand,’ so they don’t feel like I’m dismissing this completely. Wonder what they’re actually unhappy with instead.”
Turns out, I micromanaged. I would’ve known sooner if I listened. It took their leave and another year for me to realize I messed up.
Ask exploratory questions
Asking questions pairs so well with active listening. Ask questions to better understand your direct reports’ intentions. Be a fact-finder. Be an investigator.
Being a good investigator is a great way to find customer problems to solve as a product manager. Being a good investigator allows for greater understanding and empathy.
The same applies to being a people manager. Probe to understand motives and thought processes instead of actions and execution processes.
Try this: Instead of asking “What are you prioritizing?” ask: “How are you thinking through prioritization?” This provides you with informative data points and opportunities for more dialogues:
- How they prioritize tasks.
- How they perceive their contribution.
- How well you’ve conveyed your expectations, goals, and the vision.
- Segue to align on prioritization.
- Check and balance workload and care for your direct reports’ mental health.
Convey your thoughts simply
When I had to read Ernest Hemingway in high school, I found it a chore. How did he become a respected writer? By stitching together common words into short sentences? Balderdash! A complete gobbledygook! A disparaging example of American literature! The inner critic in me thought he had zero flourish and bland rhetoric. Wrong.
“Any damn fool can make something complex; it takes a genius to make something simple.” ― Pete Seeger ―
It’s much more difficult to be concise and profound.
Stop practicing the art of bullshitting. Use short sentences to introduce and share your thoughts. Make it easy to skim your writing. Consider the key pieces of information you want to convey before you communicate. It’s okay to say “I need to think about this more.” That’s a complete thought. There’s no reason to improvise in hopes you stumble into brilliant prose.
Stop trying to keep score
Read any relationship article on tallying up and you’ll get the same answer: Stop. Stop tallying up when you were right and they were wrong. Stop tallying up when they’ve made mistakes. Stop tallying up all the late nights you’ve put in and they didn’t.
It’s natural to notice and compare. It’s human to keep score for the nonsensical game you’re playing in your head. For me, it’s an act of self preservation. I’m the hero in my story. And I can prove my title is well-deserved. Look at my scoreboard!
But with people management, it’s not about you. It’s certainly not you versus your direct report. What do you get by having a higher score than your direct report? You can bask in the fact that you’re right and they’re wrong. What a shoddy employee, you think. Who is their lousy manager? Well done. You played yourself.
Do your job to make their job easier
In my experience, managers often promote high performing individual contributors. Those contributors becoming first-time managers need to be extra cautious. Excelling at your old job doesn’t mean you’ll excel at managing others who now do that job.
Being a good chef doesn’t guarantee that you’ll run a restaurant well. In fact, only being a good chef may be a restaurateur’s downfall. So if you’re like me and you’ve thought about running a food truck because you make mean braised short ribs, you may want to reconsider. For one, I hate driving big cars.
When you go from contributor to manager, your job is no longer confined to what you used to do.
For example: As a software developer, you need to produce quality code. As a manager, you need to help software developers produce quality code. Your job as a manager isn’t exclusive to reviewing their lines of code. You need to figure out how to unblock and foster creativity in your team. You need to make sure the team understands what they’re working towards and why. You need to speak up on your team’s behalf to ensure they feel heard if their work looks risky ahead.
Hold yourself accountable first
“I was wrong. I’m sorry.” Do these statements stir a visceral reaction? They do for me. One of my high school coaches once told me “It’s sad and funny to see you deny how wrong you are.” He was a jerk. But he was right.
I eventually got used to saying these phrases for all the wrong reasons. They were a Get Out of Jail Free Card. I could maintain a veneer of humility by raising my hand and taking responsibility. Afterwards, I would slither away from the situation and receive praise for being open, honest, and brave. They were my ultimate deus ex machina.
But this is plain manipulation. What you do after your words carries greater weight.
Try this: The team made a mistake? Complete an introspection with yourself before demanding to know what happened. Here are some questions to help you get started.
- Where were you?
- What was your participation like?
- How did the team feel during the project?
- What was your pulse on the progress leading up to the mistake
- How can you help set the next project up for success?
One way to breed distrust as a first-time manager is blowing sycophantic, apologetic kisses upward and throwing “bring me solutions, not problems” accountability punches downward. It’s your team. Help them navigate out of the storm.
Don’t be a jerk
I saved the most obvious for last.
Being a first-time manager is like cultivating any relationship. You don’t want to be friends with an Arrogant Adam who doesn’t listen, Talkative Tanner who talks at you, or Forgetful Frank who says, “Sorry, I thought I already gave you money for the bill we split” after drinking 3 more drinks than you (Every. Week. And still no Venmo).
Likewise, you don’t want to be managed by an Arrogant Adam who tells you how to do it his way and never accepts new ideas, Talkative Tanner who still insists on talking at you, or Forgetful Frank who says, “Sorry, I thought that you would be happy with this expanded responsibility and we agreed you aren’t yet ready for the next level” after 3 glowing performance reviews without tangible, actionable feedback.
Try this: My self-assessment on whether I’m a jerk manager is as follows:
- How will this meeting/project/email/presentation help me?
- How will this meeting/project/email/presentation help my team?
If you have an easier time coming up with answers to question 1 versus 2, you might be acting like a jerk.