You’ve Been Promoted to Manager But You Don’t Know How to Manage!

You’ve been a star performer on your team and you have distinguished yourself by going above and beyond and then the happy day comes with your promotion to Manager. While at first you are thrilled with the new salary and title, you soon begin to realize that the managing skill set has never been in your wheel house. What’s a new manager to do to avoid disaster on the new job?

Jennifer King  is an HR Analyst at Software Advice, a company that reviews and compares human resources software. She reports on trends, technology, and best practices related to HR. She wrote a great piece on her HR blog distilling 5 tips for new managers that she collected from new managers. This advice, coupled with the wisdom she gleaned from an executive coach just might help you through the tough times in your new role until you become more effective leading your new team.

Jennifer will be my guest on CBS Radio Career Coach Caroline at 5pm ET on Tuesday, May 1, 2012. Tune in for this important conversation with best practice tips for new managers. Here is a brief look at Jennifer’s top 5 tips.

Get to Know Your People and What They Want. Take as much time as possible in the beginning of your transition to get to know your direct reports. Talk to them about their career goals, what they want out of their current position, and how you can best support them.

Learn to See Your Work Through Others. As a manager, you’ll likely be spending most of your time in meetings, discussions with senior management, and one-on-one conversations with your team, which will leave you less time to work on your own projects. You’ll eventually begin to see your work shine through your team as you give direction and offer guidance.

Listen Up! The ability to listen to your team and give guidance without assuming you immediately know the right answer will be critical as you spend more one-on-one time with your employees.

Develop Your Own Style. While it may feel easy or natural to mimic the management tactics of your previous boss, those same tactics might not work for you. Instead, think about what they did and how you can learn from them to develop your own style.

Don’t Expect to Be Awesome in the Beginning. One of the biggest misconceptions held by first-time managers is that they’ll be good at management from the get-go. In most cases, though, new managers need training and development just like any new hire within an organization.

Tune into CBS Radio’s Career Coach Caroline Tuesday at 5pm ET  to hear more expert advice from Jennifer King for new managers.