First-Time Manager Mistakes and How to Avoid the Seven Biggest

My first leadership role came early in my career, when I was promoted to shift supervisor at a restaurant. I had earned it by working hard and doing the extra things nobody asked me to do, and I was proud of it. Some of the people I was suddenly responsible for had been there longer than I had. What I learned very quickly was that a title does not make anyone follow you. I did not yet know how to lead, I could not do everything myself, and I had to learn to earn people’s trust before they would follow me anywhere.

I was not unusual. Gallup reports that most managers say they have never received any management training, and Deloitte found that 36% of managers say they were insufficiently prepared to manage people. Most new managers are promoted because they were great at the job, and then handed a completely different job without a map. These are the mistakes I see most often, including the ones I made myself.

1. Trying to do everything yourself

The skills that got you promoted were probably individual skills: you were fast, accurate and dependable. The temptation as a new manager is to keep proving yourself the same way, by taking on the hardest work and jumping in whenever something goes wrong. It feels responsible, but it leaves your team without room to grow and leaves you exhausted. Your job now is to make the team better, which means teaching, delegating and letting people make some mistakes you could have prevented. More in How to Delegate Effectively.

2. Changing too much too fast

New managers often arrive with a list of things they want to fix, and some of those ideas are good. Changing them in the first few weeks, before you understand why things are the way they are, tells the team that you did not ask and did not listen. Spend your first month mostly asking questions: what is working, what is getting in the way, and what would you change if you were me. You will make better changes, and people will support them because they helped shape them.

3. Trying to stay one of the gang

If you were promoted from within, your relationships changed the day you got the title, whether you wanted them to or not. You can stay friendly and keep caring about people, and you should. What you cannot do is hold friends to a different standard, share things you should not, or avoid a conversation because it might be awkward at lunch. I wrote about this in How to Lead People Who Used to Be Your Peers.

4. Avoiding hard conversations

Nobody enjoys telling someone their work is not where it needs to be. New managers often wait, hoping it improves, and by the time they speak up the issue is bigger and the conversation is harder. Compassionate leadership is having the conversation people need to hear, not the one they want to hear. Address small issues while they are small, privately and kindly. More in How to Have a Difficult Conversation With an Employee.

5. Managing everyone the same way

Fair does not mean identical. Some people want frequent check-ins and some want space. Some light up with public recognition and some would rather have a quiet note. Some need confidence and some need humility. Spend time learning what each person on your team needs from you, and a regular one-on-one is the best place to do that. See How to Run a One-on-One Meeting.

6. Assuming people know what you expect

Expectations that live in your head do not help anyone. Gallup finds that fewer than half of U.S. employees, 49%, know what is expected of them at work. Say what good looks like, in examples, and then check that it landed by asking people to describe it back. Clear expectations make every later conversation easier. More in How to Set Clear Expectations at Work.

7. Not asking for help

Many new managers feel they are supposed to have the answers already, so they struggle quietly. The best thing that happened to me in that first role was a manager I respected handing me a leadership book and taking an interest in how I was doing. Find someone a few steps ahead of you and ask them for an hour a month. Read, listen and keep learning, because the best leaders never stop being students.

New managers are the heart of my leadership workshop, You Are Capable of More: Leadership. See also Promoted Into Leadership Without Training and The New Manager’s First 90 Days.