A New Manager

A new manager is a star performer who has shown great results in a previous job he was previously a doer so what his new job is? A new manager is filled with mixed feelings of joy and fear, he may be overconfident and may not understand his position clearly. He may have lots of expectations from his seniors and team members and may get deceive by his situation. I remember that when I got my first promotion as area manager I was having a sense of achievement but the environment around me was conducive due to lack of acceptability to a junior as a senior in the post. My sales manager who was also new to me as there were some organizational changes that took place and my SM was transferred to our zone who didn’t have any experience of working in our area. He came to our city just spent a night and went away saying that you can do it but I could feel the fear he had on the reaction of the team. Anyhow on my tour program, I went to an outstation to work with one of my team members there and on arrival at my hotel I got the message that there was a phone call from our Business Unit Manager (Mr. SI) from head office. I called him immediately he greeted me and said just observe and inform the situation to us….it was the first instruction I got and I did the same I didn’t interfere with the way my team member was working and in the end, I gave a report to my senior and as per their instructions, I moved forward. Initially don’t jump straight look around you and make your acceptance with patience.

A New Area Sales Manager Mistakes

  • Want to do most of the job himself.
  • Say Yes to every project.
  • They listen more than observe.
  • They treat everyone same.
  • They lose sight of the big picture.

There are several forces or factors which greatly influence a new manager e.g.:

  • A new manager is expected to learn his job quickly.
  • He has to prove himself again means start from the scratch again.
  • Has to worry about his counter colleagues specially on their performance.
  • His team and colleague’s reaction.
  • Pressure to perform.

New managers must understand that they have a new job, first of all he should try to understand:

  • what is his new role
  • what authority he has now,
  • what is  his responsibilities and
  • Expectations of his seniors and colleagues.

So, the problem is that most people are promoted to their first management role, not because they are a great leader, but because they are a great doer; e.g. the top sales rep gets promoted to sales manager. In effect, the management role is a reward for doing their previous job well. When the new manager starts leading their team for the first time they have no idea how to lead, but they’re great at doing the previous day job, so that’s where they focus their time. For the most part, they ignore the leadership components of their new job (providing clarity, strategy, and accountability to their team) because they don’t even know what those are. After all, their managers never did that either.

let’s have a look at some of the behaviors typically seen in “doers” and then how “Developers” behave…..

                         Doers                     Developers
  • Doers attend way too many meetings every week. They attend meetings they don’t have to be in just so they can stay in the loop. They think that attending meetings is just something managers do. 
  • Doers have all the answers. Doers think they are adding value by giving out answers and it makes them feel important. It makes them feel needed. 
  • Doers put out fires. They actually wear this as a badge of honour. They think they are being productive by putting out fires and removing obstacles.
  • Doers prevent failure and discomfort. They see failure as a bad thing so they swoop in to save the day if one of their employees is struggling. 
  • Doers think it’s their responsibility to protect their employees from conflict or discomfort.  
  • Developers however, understand that too many meetings are not only unproductive, but actually toxic. Meetings take up time that you could spend developing and leading your people. 
  • Developers don’t give many answers, they ask questions. 
  • Developers make sure that their team has the proper resources so they can find the answers to their questions themselves.
  • Developers teach their employees how to put out their own fires. Just like finding their own answers, learning how to solve their own problems empowers the employees.
  • Developers understand that failure leads to learning and ultimate success. They create a culture where failure is not something to be feared but something to examine and learn from.
 

Zulfiqar Ali Qureshi

Business Consultant, Trainer,  Blogger, Author and a speaker!

This Post Has 9 Comments

  1. Anonymous

    Great

  2. Misbah ul Hafeez

    Marvelous. A good article and great advice to newly promoted managers.

  3. Faisal shahzad

    Clear direction and guidelines for newly promoted Field Managers
    For their development

  4. Kassie

    I think that what you said made a bunch of sense. But, consider this, what if you were to create a killer headline?

    I ain’t saying your content isn’t good, but what if you added a headline to maybe get people’s attention? I mean A New Manager – Zulfiqar
    Ali Qureshi is a little vanilla. You could peek at Yahoo’s home page and watch how they create
    post titles to grab people interested. You might try adding a video or a
    pic or two to grab people excited about what you’ve got to say.
    In my opinion, it would bring your posts a little livelier.

  5. 0mniartist

    Ahaa, its good conversation on the topic of this piece of
    writing here at this webpage, I have read all that, so at
    this time me also commenting at this place. asmr 0mniartist

  6. zoritoler imol

    A person necessarily help to make critically posts I would state. That is the first time I frequented your web page and so far? I amazed with the analysis you made to make this actual post extraordinary. Great activity!

Leave a Reply