6 CONSULTATIONS LEADERS NEED TO MAKE TO TRAIN THE NEW GENERATION OF MANAGERS

According to a CareerBuilder survey, 58% of new managers receive no training when they are promoted to their first management position. A study by Zenger Folkman found that it takes an average of 12 years for a manager to have the leadership development investment needed to help them become better leaders. That’s a major flaw for first-time managers: they want to succeed, but aren’t provided with the resources needed to develop their new role. Usually, to save on investment costs, managers – senior leaders are often directly involved in leadership training for new managers. In this role, senior leaders are indispensable for building growth conversations, for continuous assessment and feedback, and for creating learning opportunities for newcomers. Here are six topics that are highly recommended for productive conversations.

Another mindset

From a psychological perspective, it is easy for first-time managers to avoid challenges, give up on difficult situations, and ignore negative feedback so as not to accept failure. Leaders should reinforce them by thinking that mistakes and failures are an integral part of what makes a successful leader. They can also create a culture of learning growth and encourage new managers to constantly learn from existing experiences. Some questions that should be asked of the new manager are as follows:

What are you most afraid of in your new role? What can I do as your boss to alleviate those fears?

Let me tell you about the mistakes I made when I was a new manager. What would you do in my situation?

The current situation has not turned out the way you wanted. What have you learned from it, and what will you do next time you are in a similar situation?

As a manager, how do you foster a growth mindset in your subordinates so they aren’t afraid to make mistakes?

Another set of skills

New managers are often promoted because of their mastery of technical skills. However, if they depend solely on those skills, they will struggle in management roles, when other skills are key, such as communication and influence. Therefore, questions that need to be asked for them to solve on their own include:

How often do you receive all the work communications your team members receive? If not, what will you have to do to make sure you integrate with them in terms of method and timeliness of communication?

Think about the people you work with. How do you recognize how people are affected and how can you tailor your approach to influence them?

Some other working relationships

One of the biggest challenges new managers have to realize is that their relationship with co-workers has changed from friend to manager-employee level. Leaders need to guide them to transform these relationships based on three aspects:

Orientation: What is your team’s main goal and mission? How do members participate in setting those goals?

Link: What conversations have you had with team members to understand how people like to be managed? Do they know their exact roles and responsibilities in accomplishing the team’s goals and missions?

Commitment: How do you motivate team members? Who should be encouraged in public and who should be encouraged in private? If you don’t know how can you find out? How do you keep each team member engaged in their work?

Another attitude

The new manager is already used to handling professional work on his own, and this is sure to cause trouble in the new role. Leaders need to help them realize this mistake to begin delegating and training employees to do the job by asking the following questions:

How should you delegate work? How can you delegate work that creates new challenges for employees?
How do you feel about the feedback? What was the best part of the feedback you’ve ever received? Is it positive or negative?

Can you give me feedback on how I’m managing you? That way, you can take comfort in knowing that I can do it better. In turn, you’ll understand that your employees need to feel comfortable giving you feedback, helping you build a positive feedback environment to grow your team.

Another point of view

Management should not only focus on the work of its team, but also must focus on stakeholders, including departments, functions and accompanying “political” events. The leader needs to help the new manager take a neutral look, with questions like:

Let me know what you have noticed about other parts or functions. What are their goals, missions, and motivations?

How can your team align your goals, mission, and motivations with theirs, and vice versa?

Usually, when something goes wrong, the parties easily fall into the “win-lose” mentality. Going forward, how can you foster a win-win mentality when working across departments while promoting healthy competition?

Emphasize focus

Finally, the leader should emphasize the necessary qualities of a person in the management-leadership ranks of the company, through the questions:

Think of the leaders in the company who have succeeded because of their character and ethics. What can you learn from them?

Think of leaders who have failed in a company due to their lack of integrity. What happened, and why did it happen? What lessons can you learn from these failures?

With the suggestions above, leaders can easily create growth talks for first-time managers. This companionship will help the new generation of managers quickly succeed in their roles because they are “standing on the shoulders of giants”, with valuable experience of failure and success from their predecessors.

GEM Global Translated and compiled from trainingindustry.com