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The transition from star employee to new boss is more difficult than most individuals realize, with numerous potential for failure along the way. It’s not an option to stumble your way through. You will study the following abilities in The First-Time Manager:
Meetings, employing staff, motivating others, actively listening, remaining calm under pressure, overcoming resistance, and much more are all skills that may be learned.
A coveted promotion can turn into a trial by fire if you lack experience or training. That is unnecessary. Turn to the book that has helped thousands of people get started.
Table of Contents
Summary of The First-Time Manager by Jim McCormick Pdf
The Path to Leadership
People can become managers in many different ways.
Unfortunately, many firms do not go through a thorough process when selecting candidates for managerial positions. Often, people are judged primarily on how well they perform in their current role. Although many firms still choose managers based on individual contributions, the best individual contributor does not always create the best manager. The argument goes that past success is the best predictor of future success. Management abilities, on the other hand, are not the same as the talents required to succeed as an individual contributor.
So just because an employee is a good performer and has a track record of success doesn’t indicate she’ll be a good manager. Being a manager necessitates abilities beyond those of a skilled technician. Managers must concentrate on people rather than jobs. They must rely on others rather than being self-sufficient. Non-managers succeed by having a tight focus and being detail-oriented, whereas managers are also team-oriented and have a broad focus. Transitioning from an individual contributor to a manager resembles the difference between being a technician and becoming an artist in many aspects. Because management is typically subtle and subjective, the manager is an artist. It necessitates a shift in perspective.
Getting Started
Don’t expect everyone to be pleased with your promotion. Some of your coworkers will believe they were the ones who should have been chosen. They can be envious of your new job and secretly want you to fail.
Others, the “yes people” in the office, will start playing games with you right away. You, as the selected one, have the potential to be their ticket to success. Their goal isn’t entirely negative, but their approach is.
Early on, certain coworkers will put you to the test. They may test your knowledge by asking you questions. They’ll want to see if you’ll admit it or try to fake your way through it if you don’t. Some people will ask you questions you can’t possible know the answers to simply to embarrass you.
Most people, you hope, will take a wait-and-see approach. They won’t judge or applaud you until they see how you perform. This mindset is healthy, and it is all you have the right to expect.
This is an excellent opportunity to discuss your own attitude. Many new managers communicate effectively with their superiors but communicate poorly with their direct reports. Your direct subordinates, on the other hand, will have a greater say in your destiny than your superiors. Because you’ll be judged on how well your team works and produces results, the people who now work for you are the most important people in your organization. They’re more vital to your future than your company’s president, believe it or not. This understanding has always seemed clear, yet many new managers spend practically all of their time organizing their upward communication and just give the people who truly determine their future a fleeting glance.
Building Confidence and Trust
You, the manager, can create trust in a variety of ways, including accepting mistakes and letting people see their faults, giving praise and reward, including others in decision-making, and avoiding perfectionism.
Your team members can learn about the organization’s and department’s visions. This offers them a better understanding of the objectives and how they are contributing to their achievement.
You can offer people precise instructions. This demonstrates that you know what you’re doing and are staying on track.
You can give examples of how you have succeeded and how you have made mistakes. This develops trust and allows your team to see you as a real person.
You can talk to each member of your team to find out what they want from the job. You are proving that you genuinely care and are committed to helping them succeed professionally by doing so.
Show your gratitude
Many managers, especially rookie ones, are hesitant to compliment their employees. This is understandable given that it is a new talent for them. You must practice expressing gratitude in order to become more comfortable with it. It will grow easier the more you practice. When delivering praise or expressing gratitude, keep the following in mind:
Please be specific. Managers must be explicit in their positive comments if they want certain behaviors to be repeated. The manager’s attention to detail increases the likelihood that the behavior or action will be repeated. Don’t just remark, “You did a fantastic job last week.” “You handled that challenging circumstance with diplomacy and smart judgment last week,” said.
Explain the effect. Most team members want to know how their work fits into the broader picture, or the bigger scheme of things, such as accomplishing the unit, department, or organization’s objectives. If it did, tell them how their contributions benefited those outside of your team.
Don’t go overboard. Some supervisors go too far and give their employees excessively favorable comments. When this happens, the feedback’s impact is weakened, and the praise may appear false. Make sure the compliments are appropriate and well-deserved, or they will lose their value.
Listening with Intent
Active listeners have a variety of characteristics and abilities, many of which can be improved with time. They encourage the other person to speak for one thing. When active listeners finally speak out, they do not refocus the discourse on themselves. They carry on the conversation of the other person. They communicate their genuine interest in what is being stated by using certain phrases or gestures.
Looking at someone you’re conversing with implies that you’re engaged in what they’re saying. When you nod your head yes, it means you understand what the speaker is saying. You are enjoying the talk if you are smiling at the same time.
Restating what you feel you’ve heard is the pinnacle of active listening. Reiteration is effective for two reasons. It gives a clear message that you are paying attention to the conversation and decreases the chances that you are misinterpreting what is being said.
To use restating, say something like, “Let me see if I understand what you’re saying,” then give your interpretation of what you think you just heard. You then ask the individual you’re talking to if you said it correctly. By doing so, you’re giving a clear indication that you value what the other person has to say.
The New Manager’s Job and How to Avoid Pitfalls
Most management experts agree that managers, regardless of where they work or who they supervise, have some primary tasks. Hiring, communicating, planning, organizing, training, monitoring, reviewing, and terminating are some of the most important roles. The easier the task of managing grows as you get better and more comfortable with these obligations. These are the eight obligations.
1.Finding people with the talents, or potential skills, commitment, and confidence to succeed on the job is what hiring is all about.
2.Communicating is informing your staff about the organization’s vision, aims, and objectives. It also entails disseminating information about what’s going on in your department, unit, group, or company.
3.Planning include determining what work has to be done in order to accomplish the department’s goals, which, in turn, meet the organization’s goals.
4.Organizing entails assessing the resources required to complete each work or project, as well as defining which employees are responsible for which tasks.
5.Training entails evaluating each employee’s ability level to identify skill gaps and then giving instructional opportunities to close these gaps.
6.Monitoring entails ensuring that work is completed and that each of your staff completes tasks and assignments successfully.
7.Evaluating entails measuring individual team members’ performance, offering them with useful feedback, and comparing their performance to the standards required for that person and the team to succeed.
8.Firing is the process of removing persons from a team who are unable to make the contributions required for their own or the team’s success.
Working with Your Bosses
Employer loyalty is becoming less widespread. It’s never a good idea to be blindly faithful, but being loyal doesn’t entail selling your soul. Your organization and your employer, presumably, are not aiming to defraud society. They aren’t worth your loyalty if they are. Furthermore, you should not be employed by them.
Let’s pretend you’re persuaded that your company’s mission is noble, and you’re proud to be connected with it. The kind of devotion we’re talking about has to do with carrying out ethically sound policies or decisions. Assume your position at the organization permits you to have some say in decisions affecting your area of responsibility. You must make every effort to ensure that such input is intelligent and comprehensive. Don’t be the type of boss that just makes recommendations that benefit his or her own area of responsibility. Because your advise does not reflect a broad perspective, your advice will be dismissed and eventually no longer be sought.
If you give recommendations that are broad in scope and compatible with the company’s overall goals, your counsel will be valued more and sought more frequently. The crucial thing to remember is that your input into the decision-making process might extend beyond your own level of management.
Developing Your Own Management Style
When picking an appropriate managerial style as a new manager, you should employ the “awareness approach.” You must utilize the appropriate degree of management and encouragement for each of your employees in order for them to be conscious.
Control entails:
- Giving orders to staff
- demonstrating how to accomplish it
- ensuring that the work is completed
- Encouragement consists of:
Motivating \sListening
Interfering with employees’ ability to complete their tasks
Some employees require a lot of direction and encouragement, while others require very little. Then there are some who fall in the middle. To use the awareness technique while choosing a management style, you must first determine what each of your employees requires from you. How much supervision and encouragement do they require from you?
Depending on what she’s working on or what’s going on in the department, each employee will demand different levels of control or encouragement. If an employee needs to learn how to run a new piece of equipment, for example, she will require a great deal of control. If the company is talking about downsizing and reducing back, your employees will need a lot of encouragement.
There is no one-size-fits-all management style. A situation may need you to employ a different style than you normally would. When you’re working on a tight schedule and absolutely no mistakes are allowed, you might need to be more directive than usual. On the other hand, at the start of a significant project where all team members must agree on the methodologies to be utilized, you may need to be more hands-off than usual to allow agreement to emerge. While you will create a baseline management style over time, depending on the nature of the issues you are encountering, you will need to change it in some cases.
About the Author
Jim McCormick (Denver, CO) is the founder and president of the Research Institute for Risk Intelligence and was previously the COO of the country’s fifth-largest architectural business. He has vast expertise working with CEOs and other leaders as an organizational consultant and executive coach.
