3 Dangerous Mistakes Managers Make

I’ve seen them, I’ve made them — but you don’t have to

Nothing ever prepares you fully for the next step up the management ladder. We desperately want to shine but don’t know what that will entail.

Ironically, the person in the best place to help you, the person who sat in your chair previously, is usually unavailable. For the vacancy to have occurred, your predecessor will have left the company or be too busy in their new role to have much time for you.

And while you may get sent on courses, given management books, or even offered a coaching session or two, nothing quite prepares you for the reality.

Stepping into a new management role is a shock

I worked for the chain recruitment agencies many moons ago. From the start, I was put in as a branch manager.

I was given zero training. My team was allocated by a regional head office. and without any input from me.

We had to send our results in once a week. If we made the grade, then we were left in peace. If we didn’t, people got fired.

I knew nothing about management. I had no personal mentor, no personal development plan, and only a threat of dismissal as an incentive. It quickly became demoralizing, and I left.

I learned the hard way that when you don’t have the support you need in-house, you need to actively seek out mentors outside your company.

Above all, you need to see a new management position, not as somewhere to immediately take ownership of but as a mammoth learning curve.

Being an effective manager requires humility

It does not require becoming a knight on a white charger

I have been a new manager and hired many new managers in my own companies over the years. I used to think being anxious to impress was a great trait in a new manager.

I now believe that this is a dangerous mindset to have.

Of course, some of that anxiety may come from poor managers further up the chain, demanding unrealistically immediate results.

But part of your learning curve in a new management role will be developing resilience to pressure from “upstairs”: Resilience grounded in the knowledge that immediate results are nearly always short-term gain for long-term pain.

Leaping in before you can walk brings disaster every time

There are several reasons for this. Let me explain three major ones:

1. Leaping in is people-careless:

When managers are over-focussed on the job and their results, they forget that there is no I in team, and their role is the lynchpin of their team.

They do not take the time to get to know every team member and to foster good relationships that work with all of their rich diversity. Instead, they gravitate to those who are easy to manage or feel familiar, not necessarily those with the most to offer.

I have seen this time and time again. The result is an inner group of mini-me’s and a culture of favoritism, with the rest of the team out in the cold, lost and uncertain.

When managers are so focused on fast achievements in their job, they have no time for anyone in their team who appears not to be doing the same.

Team building overall is something else they have no time for.

As the team flails, results spiral. All too often, the new manager then leaps further, determined to put their stamp on the team by clearing out what they feel is the deadwood causing the problem.

Other team members start job-hunting as trust evaporates. The manager’s most valuable resources, people who have been doing the job for a while, know it well, and could help the manager succeed, are lost.

Take time to get to know your team, and to build essential trust.

2. Leaping in destroys trust:

New managers are desperate to be in control. They are in a job they don’t know, which is terrifying. Their obsession with being a success makes it worse, and the fact they haven’t taken time and trouble to get to know their team makes it worse still.

Too often, the result is that they interfere with every tiny detail and become full-blown micro-managers. The team feels untrusted, checked up on, intimidated, and demoralized.

But the effect on the manager is often even worse. Having a finger in every possible pie is completely impossible. They become swamped, miss crucial details, and constantly change the dates of meetings due to lack of time. In short, their performance as a manager deteriorates in a rapid space of time.

Some see introducing a deluge of courses for team members as guaranteed to impress their new bosses. But courses are an additional pressure on people’s time. Most of all, they are no replacement for the individual mentoring that the manager should be doing in the first place.

The lack of trust and the inability to delegate makes everything worse for both sides. The manager is too sunk in detail to focus on the big picture, the overall vision and goals. So, they also forget to motivate and share the vision with team members.

People will only do their best work when given both a reason to do so and the support and the autonomy to do it. The micro-manager does none of these things. The team performs worse. The manager scrabbles for more control. It is a vicious circle.

When a manager becomes lost in the detail, communication is the first casualty. Goals are blurred, direction fuzzy, and the team, lost and demoralized, fails more and more.

New managers should take time to fully understand the goals, ensure their team understands them, and stand back and encourage. Recognize their people are their best possible asset, to be treasured and encouraged. And be very, very sure that everyone understands what the aims and visions are.

3. Leaping in leads to panic:

The team will be panicking by now, wondering why they are all doing so badly, if their job is on the line, and questioning why they are hating a job they loved only a few months ago.

But the new manager is also starting to panic. Instead of the glorious results they envisage, they find that they are tired, unhappy, and overworked, and the results are sinking like the proverbial lead balloon.

The next step is, inevitably, wild decision-making. It may be going to HR and demanding they negotiate the departure of one or two team members. It may be re-organizational decisions. Radically changing the way things are done must surely prove the answer.

But because they do not value team members, they don’t ask for input from the people who know the job. They draw on some ideal that worked for another company some years previously or some generic data without seeing the local nuances.

When people raise queries, they are dismissed. By now, nothing can stand in the way of the new manager’s steamroller. They haven’t got time and are far too stressed to listen to anyone else’s ideas, however good, and push on with their own regardless. The team may have the satisfaction of saying what they tried to say, but nothing will make up for the feelings of apathy and defeat.

When the panic sets in, it is the last moment for drastic decisions.

But it is the first moment to ask for help. Good management above will respect you for it.

The job is everything your instincts told you it wasn’t

Moving into a new management position is not about beating your chest and announcing your arrival without pausing for breath.

The wise manager fends off any pressure from above. They take time to get to know their team members individually and gain empathy with them.

They help them support them and earn their trust by standing back and allowing them to do their jobs. They learn from them and earn their respect.

They act as a conduit, translating the company vision into relevance to the team and their own personal development.

They learn from their team, they learn from their peers, and they ask for the help of their superiors and or mentors when needed.

Just as there is no I in team, there is no E for ego in being a good manager.

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