Many first time managers face significant challenges as they go from a place as someone who āexecutesā to someone whoās responsible for a team.
Here are some tips to remember if youāre transitioning to a management role for the first time:
This one is hard for a lot of leaders to understand.
Most new managers think that becoming a manager is the āgraduation.ā Truth is, itās the reverse.
1. Leaders work for their employees.
That means you have to understand what your employees want at a deep level. You have to be constantly adapting to their needs and what they want from the organization.
For example, one of my employees might want higher pay when heās 24. But maybe he falls in love at 28 and decides he wants to spend more time with his family. Another might be more interested in a fancy title. Another might want to get access to me and build a relationship. Another might want to go to our state of the art corporate headquarters and work there.
There are a million different variables, and itās on you as a leader to adjust to reality as it changes.
When you go from being someone who āexecutesā to someone whoās managing a team, you go from trading on IQ to trading on EQ. You go from doing the actual work to listening to employees, catering to what they want, taking blame, and being the bigger person.
The best managers are actually the best mentors.
2. Lead with empathy and kindness
Empathy and kindness are two massively underrated qualities when it comes to leading a team. Theyāre not qualities that most people would think makes a good leader, but I believe in them so much.
I genuinely believe that the best leadership qualities are maternal, not paternal. Itās a lot more appropriate and helpful to have a caring, empathetic, understanding personality when youāre a leader than something stern, paternal, or aggressive.
A lot of people overlook the idea that showing emotion is important.
Even if you already think of yourself as an empathetic or kind person, becoming a manager will change how you practically apply that empathy.
A lot of this just comes down to self-esteem. If youāre not secure in yourself, youāre not going to feel as comfortable being kind, positive, and empathetic to other people. It wonāt come as natural to build someone up (instead of tear them down). Itās why so many leaders lead with aggressive, mean personalities. Many of them are just insecure on the inside and they project that insecurity on their understudies.
At Many companies today, you canāt lead with ego. They suffocate that out. People who lead with negativity and ego get fired really quickly too from what Iāve seen in business the past 3 decades here in America.
3. To Build Culture, Focus on Coaching and if they donāt shape up, donāt give up on them!
When I hire, I do look for certain qualities.
For example⦠emotional intelligence matters above everything else. Then, I care about the actual tangible skills candidates have.
Itās not even close. If someoneās a jerk, I wonāt hire them ā even if their numbers are phenomenal. Itās similar to sports ā a team that sticks together will end up beating a team of superstars that were put together for one season (over the long term).
Another big piece of advice I give is hiring people that complement your strengths. If youāre a visionary type of person, hire someone who is obsessed with excel and freaks out if youāre a minute late. Hire someone who loves details.
A lot of leaders get ācaughtā because they hire friends that are similar to them, but arenāt what they actually need.
But ultimately, to maintain great culture within your team, you have to do one thing:
Focus on getting rid of the cancer by suffocating their negativity with coaching and mentoring. It takes time but itāll be worth it in the end.
In the early days of my company, I would hire people real easily ā but I would fire quickly if and when I realized they werenāt a good fit on my team. It didnāt matter to me how great they were on paper or how talented they were ā if they didnāt play well with the other people on the team, they were out.
If you donāt cut that ācancerā out quickly, your team will crumble long term. Nowadays I limit my time with the toxic crabs, my hope is that through my content theyāll succumb to my POV.
4. Being nice is ROI positive
Truth is, you could have the greatest HR tools and software of all time to āmonitorā how your employees are doing ā but if you donāt actually care about your people at a deep level, you will lose. None of those tools are going to do anything.
As a leader, itās my job to give my employees 51% of the value in the relationship.
But Iām not Mother Teresa. Itās just practical.
If youāre using negativity as a way to extract value from employees or people on your team, theyāll build resentment towards you and itāll kill your culture long term.
I want to create a conversation around the practicality of positivity, kindness, and empathy within my organization. Iām not just saying it to be ideological ā instilling those characteristics and traits as part of your culture has significant long term impact for your business.
And if thereās ever a debate on whatās good for our employees vs whatās good for our bottom line, sheāll win that debate nine times out of ten.
5. Say āYesā to Everything
As a leader, Iām very āyesā minded. I say āyesā to virtually everything.
I say āyesā to everything because I look at business as a net-net game.
Letās say I say āyesā to 12 things, and 7 succeed. On one side, I won 7 times. On the other side, I have to deal with failures ā including trying to make up for them because I may have let people down directly or indirectly through those losses.
Even if it breaks down into those two categories, I will still take the 7 wins that resulted from saying āyesā to everything rather than just trying to do 2 or 3 with the goal of āgetting them right.ā
6. Give Trust Easily
I give trust a lot easier than most CEOs would.
I think itās just smart. Itās offense.
The reason most people donāt give trust is because they fear losses. Theyāre afraid of an employee messing up, failing, or creating short term losses in business. But the truth is, at some point, you have to let your kid swim. You have to let your kid swing the bat.
And for me, Iād rather do that sooner than later.
Too many managers put restrictions around their employees, and then lift those restrictions as employees prove themselves. Iād rather give my employees unlimited trust in the beginning, and then slowly take that trust away if and when they do something to lose it. Thatās what helps me move fast.
Giving trust also minimizes the risk of micromanagement. When people who are amazing at execution move into a management role, they tend to still be in that āexecutionā mindset which leads them to be stuck doing other peopleās work instead of focusing on managing the team.
But the problem is, most managers are either 1) afraid of short term losses that come with giving trust, or 2) theyāre afraid of potentially allowing their understudies to be better than them.
7. Communicate with underperforming employees
There are different types of employees that youāll have to deal with as a manager ā underperforming employees that have strong talent, hardworking employees that arenāt talented, and more.
The way I deal with them is strong communication.
When you have the luxury of being the ājudge and the juryā as a manager, the pressure and the onus is on you. If there are employees at VaynerMedia that are highly talented but underperforming, itās my fault for not creating the infrastructure for them to shine.
Maybe their bosses arenāt āclickingā with them and thatās making them feel demotivated. Maybe theyāre just in the wrong department. Maybe we havenāt asked the right questions when it comes to the interests they have.
If you have an employee thatās talented but underperforming, sit down with them in a meeting and ask them:
āHey Gabriel, I noticed you have talent oozing out of your eyes but youāre not delivering on the hustle ā and thatās an important variable here. What am I doing wrong? Whatās the company doing wrong? How can we help you succeed?ā
Unfortunately, most managers have conversations that go like āNoah, youāre being lazy. Step it up.ā
When youāre a leader, you have to put the onus on you. Youāre the one creating the rules of the game.
If you donāt like how itās played, change the rules.
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