5 tips to set new managers up for success

When you don’t equip managers with the skills they need, you’re setting up more than just their teams for failure.

To avoid creating a sense of isolation, group your managers together into “classes” so they can learn, practice and roleplay together. (Image: Shutterstock)

Most new managers feel underprepared for their roles. Considering that over a quarter of leaders never receive any training at all, that’s not surprising.

Manager performance is a leading indicator of company performance. When you don’t equip managers with the skills they need, you’re setting up more than just their teams for failure. That’s why learning and development are both so important. When structured the right way, manager training programs can be interactive, engaging, and give new leaders the confidence boost they need.

1. Be clear about what makes a great manager.

Great individual contributors don’t always make great managers. The reverse is true as well. Management requires a completely different skillset — and the cliche about “what got you here won’t get you there” certainly applies to new or aspiring leaders.

Related: What it takes for effective leadership in today’s workforce

From the start, make it clear that management isn’t about adding a few extra responsibilities onto employees’ plates. Your new leaders will soon be expected to spend additional time in weekly one-on-ones, supporting employees’ professional development, and clearing any roadblocks in their way. Excelling as a manager will have little to do with who has the most technical expertise or who’s been the most successful in the past. State that upfront in your first manager training session.

2. Group managers into classes.

New leaders often share that they feel isolated and alone right after their promotions. Going through management training solo would only exacerbate that.

Group your managers together into “classes” so they can learn, practice, and roleplay together. If you don’t have enough recently promoted leaders to fill up a class, don’t let that discourage you. It might actually work in your benefit to mix seasoned leaders into the training program. Doing so not only helps veteran managers brush up on their skills, it can also take some of the pressure off your instructors.

Experienced leaders can share advice and specific examples from what they’ve seen firsthand, giving new managers much-needed perspective. This is also where “students” can develop future mentor-mentee relationships.

3. Emphasize coaching first.

Being a manager doesn’t mean having all the answers. That might be the biggest misconception about leadership, and part of the reason why managers are so apprehensive about their roles at first.

Coaching skills can go a long way in alleviating those concerns. Coaching simply means empowering direct reports to find solutions through questioning, rather than giving direct advice. In answering questions around the who, what, where, and why of a problem, direct reports will often realize they’ve come up with the answers on their own.

Remember how management requires a different skillset? Coaching is a great example, as doing it well has more to do with nuance and technique than technical knowledge or past experience. This leads many companies to outsource coaching training to reputable third-party consultants. While there are a few popular models of coaching, the GROW model is considered one of the most popular and easy-to-learn frameworks for new managers.

4. Don’t make it a crash course.

Leadership comes with a steep learning curve. Though it might be tempting to organize one exhaustive crash course and be done with it, you’ll always miss something. What’s more, your new managers will likely just get overwhelmed by all that content. That’s the last thing you want to happen.

Instead, schedule lighter, more interactive workshops on specific themes. Some topics worth covering in greater detail include:

These manager workshops should be no longer than 3 hours, scheduled 2-4 weeks apart. During those sessions, participants should be free of distractions — meaning no smartphones or laptops. If the session is happening virtually, participants should have cameras on. If you’re having a hard time keeping their attention, be mindful of what their managers are doing. Make it clear to the senior leadership team that management training isn’t optional and that new managers should feel encouraged and supported throughout the process.

Lastly, consider giving your training participants something tangible they can turn to later on. Resources like one-on-one talking points or a 30-60-90 day plan template can help give managers the confidence to implement what they’ve just learned.

5. Leave room for style.

Sure, there are certain qualities or skills that great managers tend to share. But leadership comes in many forms, and staying true to oneself might be one of the most important rules of management. When building your curriculum, be careful when distinguishing between the right and “wrong” ways to manage.

That means emphasizing your company values and high-level principles rather than being overly perspective. For example, it would be hard to argue against encouraging managers to delegate their work or to stop micromanaging. These are two good — and hopefully uncontroversial — bits of advice. But telling them to hold daily standup meetings or conduct one-on-ones in a certain way may be too specific, as team norms should fit the manager and their reports’ culture and needs.

That isn’t to say you should shy away from citing specific examples of how a manager could address a situation. But getting too specific can trigger new leaders to start “acting” rather than leading. In practice, that mental shift tends to stunt managers and make them tentative decision-makers.

The transition to management is almost always hard to make, regardless of how built-out your L&D program is. Knowing that, time-strapped teams may be inclined to just let new managers wing it and learn on the job. But when you consider that over half of new leaders fail after their first two years, that approach clearly isn’t sustainable.

Demonstrating your investment in employees’ growth doesn’t stop at the promotion. People-first companies provide them with the resources, tools, and training they need to continue developing as managers or individual contributors. When companies make that commitment clear, employees are more than happy to return the favor and then some. Jack Altman is the co-founder and chief executive officer at Lattice. Prior to launching Lattice, Jack was the VP of Business and Corporate Development at Teespring, an e-commerce platform. Jack was also an early-stage venture capital investor in companies like Opendoor, Flexport, and PlanGrid. 

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