Five Mistakes New Managers Commonly Make

Most people want to progress in their work, and moving into management is a natural way of doing so. Some step into the new role and prosper. However, many struggle and become disillusioned, possibly stressed, and their performance dips: They’ve made the common mistakes of new managers. Here is how you can avoid making these mistakes.

MISTAKE 1: Not getting clarity on your role

Most people get a job description and may even have a quick chat with their new boss. Few, however take the time to get charity on their role. what the expectations are, and what key results are to be achieved.

SOLUTION: Make an appointment with your boos to be crystal  clear on what they expect of you and what you should deliver to be successful in your new position.

MISTAKE 2: Holding onto old tasks

If you have been promoted internally within the same organization, this is a challenge. You may have been very good at certain tasks and really enjoyed some of them.

Be crystal clear on what your boss expects of you and what you should deliver to be successful in your new position.

SOLUTION: If these are not tasks on which your performance as a manager will be judged, pass them on to someone else.

MISTAKE 3: Trying to please everyone

As a manager, you have to make decisions: Some will be popular with everyone, some will be popular with some and unpopular with others, and some will be unpopular with everyone. Accept that your decisions will not be popular with everyone.

SOLUTION: Take what you believe is the right decision based on the facts and information available, not the one that will please everyone.

MISTAKE 4: Not Believing in yourself

We all have our doubts about our skills, knowledge, experience, and personal attributes, but we can choose whether we use them as an opportunity to shrink or grow. When people take up a role as a manager, self-doubt can get in the way of their success.

SOLUTION: Recognize that opportunities to grow always exist, and remember that those who appointed you believe in you, and so should you.

MISTAKE 5: Going for a home fun too quickly

You will probably want to make an impact as soon as you can. You may have had some thoughts or ideas about what you would do and how you would be different when you became a manager. It is easy to fall into the trap of going for a home run too quickly.

SOLUTION: Take it a step at a time. Make small change. As you achieve success, raise the bar and be more adventurous.

When people take up a role as a manager, self-doubt can get in the way of their success.

Someone see your potential to be a great manager. To become one, make sure to avoid making the common mistakes of new managers.

Real-Time Performance Reviews

Too many bosses are so fearful of conflict or hurting people’s bad behaviour and poor performance even when it’s detrimental to the organization.

On the list of things that are done for all the wrong reasons in organizations, performance reviews would have to near the top.

They end up being “Check the boxes” exercises that have little influence on performance because they take place after the fact the typical performance review is the equivalent of landing an airplane and asking, “Now, where are we?” It’s a little in the game for that question.

One of the worst things about reviews is the use of numerical values to rate performance. You have probably met more than one manager who refuses to give the highest rating to anyone using the excuse, “I don’t believe in giving perfect scores.” Recently an employee of a major corporation related the bizarre example of this attitude he experienced in his most recent performance review. After the end of the evaluation, his manager said. “Nobody scores that high!” and then proceeded to lower the employee’s scores.

If the scale is 1 to 5 and no one ever gets a 5. then that means you ‘re a lousy manager. Why can’t the people who report to you ever hit the mark? What’s sad is that the boss who is afraid to acknowledge that someone has met or exceeded expectations never understands why people quit trying to meet or meet expectations, If you never give 5 (or even a 4) when it’s deserved, you create a culture where 3 becomes your standard of excellence. Mediocrity is not only acceptable, it’s as good as it gets.

On the flip side is the failure to let someone know that they’re just not getting the job done. Too many bosses are so fearful of conflict or hurting people’s feelings that they ignore bad behaviour and poor performance even when it’s detrimental to the organization. Once people understand that no one will ever call their hand when they fail to meet expectations, the tail starts wagging the dog. Guess what happens when a supervisor gives a 3 or a 4 when the employee deserves to be shown the door? Pretty soon you end up with a group of employees that makes the three stooges look competent.

The annual review is not going to go away, but the real performance review should be taking place in real time every day. Good or bad performance needs to be recognized immediately and consistently. The manager’s role should be like that of a fight instructor. The employee’s role is like that of a student. The instructor and student fly side-by-side.

CLEARLY DEFINE EXPECTATIONS

First there has to be a flight plan with clearly defined expectations. To establish the plan, as manager you should ask your employees to complete a list of expectations of their job from their perspective. This should include what they believe their responsibilities are and what authority they possess. You should do the same from your perspective, Then, set up a discussion to reconcile the two lists until both are in agreement. You also need to learn what the employees believe they need from you to successfully do their job.

MEASURE BEHAVIOUR, VALUES, AND SKILLS

As well as establishing these expectations, you should complete assessments to measure behaviour, values, and skills required for the job. Then your employees should complete corresponding assessments to see how they compare. This establishes a benchmark that helps you understand their strengths and helps you understand how to capitalize on these strengths. It also identifies areas that need strengthening. It’s important to remember that the employees have to be a good behavioural fit for the job. No amount of coaching can remake people into something they are not.

COMMUNINCATE CONSTANTLY AND CONSISTANTLY

Now, that there is a fight plan in place. It is your responsibility to provide a system and process for constant and consistent communication. You have to coach the employees, not just evaluate their performance to keep the plane on course. In my first job out of college, my sales manager called me every Monday morning. His questions included: “What’s going on?” How are doing? What can I help you with?” This provided him with what he needed to know to help me do my job. It provided me with the help I needed do my job.

PROVIDE SPECIFIC FEEDBACK

When employees meet or exceed expectations. tell them they are on course. Be specific. There is nothing in the world that will inspire them more to keep doing  a great job than to hear from the boss that you are doing a great job. The only exception is when those words are either insincere or untrue.

When employees fail to meet expectations, you need to tell them that they are off course again, be specific. If they don’t hear what you need to improve on, the only assumption to make that they are doing what you should be doing — or you don’t  care what they do. I know of a case where employees describe their manager as a wonderful person but do not think he is a good manager. They like him but dislike working for him because he gives them no direction. They feel like they are flying blind. This creates a high level of anxiety for the employees and the manager.

CHOOSE YOUR DIRECTION

Employees need and want direction. How and when it is done is what makes the difference — for the employee, for the boss, and for the organization. Like flying a plane, reviewing performance should be a matter of constant course adjustments.  If you wait until the end of the flight to make adjustments to the course, you will always be disappointed with where you land. Worse yet, someone else will probably be sifting through the wreckage to figure out why the plane crashed.

Why Emotional Intelligence is Important

For most people, emotional intelligence is more important then one’s intelligence to attain success in their lives and careers. As individuals, our success depends on our ability to read other people ‘s signals and react appropriately to them. Therefore, each one of us must develop the mature emotional intelligence skills required to better understand, empathize, and negotiate with other people, particularly in our global economy. Otherwise, success will elude us in our lives and careers.

“Your EQ (emotional intelligence quotient) is the level of your ability to understand other people, what motivates them and how to work co-operatively with them,” says Howard Gardner, the influential Harvard theorist.

UNDERSTANDING THE FIVE CATEGORIES OF EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE

1. Self-awareness:

The ability to recognize an emotion as it happens is the key to your EQ Developing self-awareness requires tuning in to your true feelings. If you evaluate your emotions, you can manage them. The major elements of self-awareness are:

  • Emotional awareness: your ability to recognize your own emotions and their effects
  • Self-confidence: sureness about your self-worth and capabilities

2. Self-regulation:

You often have little control over when you experience emotions. You can, however, have some say in how long an emotion will last by using a number of techniques to alleviate negative emotions such as anger, anxiety, or depression, often recasting a situation in a more positive light. Self-regulation involves:

  • Self-control: managing disruptive impulse
  • Trustworthiness: maintaining standards of honestly and integrity
  • Conscientiousness: taking responsibility for your own performance
  • Adaptability: handling change with flexibility.
  • Innovation: being open to new ideas

3. Motivation

To motivate yourself for any achievement requires clear goals and a positive attitude. Although you may be predisposed to be negative, you can with effort and practice, learn to think more positively. If you catch negative thoughts as they occur, you can re-frame them in more positive terms, which will help you achieve your goals. Motivation is made up of:

  • Achievement drive: your constant striving to improve or to meet a standard of excellence
  • Commitment: aligning with the goals of the group or organization
  • Initiative: readying yourself to act on opportunities
  • Optimism: pursuing goals persistently despite obstacles and setbacks

4. Empathy

The ability to recognize how people feel is important to success in your life and career. The more skilled you are at discerning the feelings behind other’s signals, the better you can control the signals you send them. An empathetic person excels at:

  • Service orientation: anticipating, recognizing, and meeting client’s needs
  • Developing others: sensing what others need to progress and bolstering their abilities
  • Leveraging diversity: cultivating opportunities through diverse people
  • Political awareness: reading a group’s emotional currents and power relationships
  • Understanding others: discerning the feelings behind the needs and wants of others

5. Social skills

Developing good interpersonal skills is crucial to success in your life and career. In today’s cyber culture, you can have immediate access to technical knowledge. Therefore, you must possess a high EQ to better understand, empathize, and negotiate with others in the global economy. Among the most useful skills are:

  • Influence: wielding effective persuasion tactics
  • Communication: sending clear messages
  • Leadership: inspiring and guiding groups and people
  • Change catalysis: initiating or managing change
  • Conflict management ability: understanding, negotiating and resolving disagreements
  • Ability to build bonds: nurturing instrumental relationships
  • Collaboration and co-operation: working with others toward shared goals
  • Team building: creating group synergy in pursuing collective goals

How well you do in your life and career is determined by both IQ and EQ. IQ alone is not enough; EQ also matters. In fact, psychologists generally agree that among the ingredients for success, IQ counts for roughly 10% (at best 25%); the rest depends on everything else-including EQ. A study of Harvard graduates in business, law, medicine, and teaching showed a negative or zero correlation between an IQ indicator (entrance exam score) and subsequent career success.

 

Tips for Conducting Employee Evaluations

Employee evaluations are among the most difficult staff management aspects of any supervisor’s job. Even if you’re a seasoned professional accustomed to conducting regular performance reviews, judging your employees’ performance and communicating your findings to them can be stressful – especially with anxious employees. And if you’re new to the job or the company, being the “newbie” who delivers feedback can pose an extra challenge.

It’s important to recognize employee evaluations for what they are: opportunities to have a dialog about progress and performance in a one-on-one setting. They’re valuable tools that allow supervisors to acknowledge improvements in an employee’s performance, as well as his individual contributions to a company’s success. When necessary, it’s also the time to discuss areas where an employee could improve and offer suggestions to do so. An employee gains insights into his supervisor’s perception of his performance and receives acknowledgement for his achievements. This is his chance to discuss strengths and weaknesses, and to see how his progress fits into his overall professional goals.

The Evaluation Procedure

Though frequency and methods vary from company to company, evaluation procedures generally consist of three steps:

  1. gathering and recording performance data
  2. evaluating that data
  3. communicating findings to the employee

As a supervisor, you possess the key to making evaluations a success: superior communication skills. It’s your responsibility to lead the conversation and ensure its tone is optimistic, objective and open in order to foster a cooperative atmosphere that allows both parties’ points to be expressed effectively.

Evaluation Tips

Some companies provide supervisors with strict guidelines on performance evaluation; others allow managers to implement those techniques they deem most fit.

Whatever the situation, you can streamline your procedure and make it more effective.

  • Decide on an evaluation system. Depending on your field, employees’ performance measurements may vary from sales numbers and production output to customer satisfaction ratings and client retention. Determine the most telling aspects of performance assessment for the situation and decide how, and how often, to gather data. For example, if you’re a sales manager, you can keep daily records of each employee’s sales and review them each quarter.
  • Let your employee know she’s being evaluated. Always inform the employee that she’s being evaluated. Explain to her what aspects of his performance are under review; how you will gather data; and how often you will evaluate.
  • Keep records diligently. Most companies have tracking systems to record certain aspects of performance such as sales or project completion. However, you can also note numerous small and large things on a daily basis. Did a certain employee provide a solution to a problem that had the rest of the team stumped? Did he go out of his way to finish a monthly report on time? Did she work effectively with another colleague to develop a more streamlined workflow? Keep a weekly or monthly file on each employee with notes on both positive and negative observations.
  • Ensure the evaluation is an accurate reflection of the entire term. When you track an employee’s performance and review your files on a regular basis, you’ll be in a better position to present a comprehensive review with accurate feedback during actual evaluation meetings. Don’t make the mistake of focusing solely on the last week or month before the meeting.
  • Don’t let personality get in the way. Whether you get along with the employee or not, you should never let personality differences get in the way of an objective assessment. You should review only behaviors, actions and performance. Whether you appreciate the employee’s sense of humor or shyness is irrelevant. Maintain a professional attitude and present your findings in an objective manner from the company’s point of view. If you observe yourself or the employee becoming frustrated, upset or angry, reiterate the objectives of the review, suggest a short break and resume the meeting when both parties are calmer.
  • Keep the tone constructive. Negative feedback is never easy to deliver or receive, so deliver yours in the most positive manner possible. Refrain from comparing the employee’s performance to that of a colleague; instead, use company goals as a benchmark.
  • Leave room for dialog. A performance review isn’t a one-way street. Allow the employee to his voice concerns and observations, as well as his short- and long-term objectives. In addition, ensure there’s room for the employee to add to your review if necessary. For example, if you’ve omitted to note actions or achievements the employee valued highly, make sure he has room to communicate them. When both parties understand what achievements the other values and what the respective goals are, it becomes easier to determine an effective workflow.

A smart supervisor knows how to get the best out of her people at all times. With a strategic approach to employee evaluations, you create a win-win for your company’s objectives and your employees’ careers.

Communicate with Power

Many of the defining characteristics needed for effective leadership — like having a vision, integrity, commitment and resilience – are innate. Fortunately, another quality, as essential for success as the others, can be learned–the ability to mobilize a fire-in-the-belly effort among employees to help the leader realize ambitious goals. Leaders can acquire this ability by observing and learning from the behaviors of leaders who deploy these skills, by being coached or by incrementally stretching employees beyond the nom to generate the needed commitment.

The power of the leader’s position alone cannot command enthusiasm and dedication from today’s workforce. Instead, employees must be convinced that the leader’s objectives are achievable, understand that meeting the goals will provide a personal payoff, and be inspired to make their own full force contribution. To generate the needed support from everyone in the organization, leaders must put their leadership on parade: They must be visible, crystal clear about their message and take every opportunity to demonstrate– live and in person– their passion for their goals. Unless they show how deeply they cares, few others will care and their plan may be seen as another flavor of the month.

MAKE IT PERSONAL

Some leaders believe it is sufficient to communicate their goals to the workforce through the organization’s internal media, such as employee publications, intranet, or videoconferencing–the more sophisticated the technology the better. Many have become enamored with blogging because it makes possible instant communications with large numbers of employees– assuming they make the effort to log on. Tlhis is useful because it allows for repetition of the leader’s message, which is essential for making an impact. But using media is not a substitute for interacting with employees face to face. Media cannot convey the intensity of feeling the leader has for his plan nearly as well as human contact does. The very fact that the leader is there, and has left the comfort of the office to communicate with employees, gives the message importance.

Leaders must make his case loudly, clearly and consistently. They should seize every opportunity to speak from the heart in personal engagements with the employees, Thus allowing them express their message with absolute clarity and address any concerns the employees may have about it. As an additional payoff, the workforce’s views about other company issues will come through unfiltered. (Reporting of bad news at these meetings should be encouraged because it can be dealt with on the spot and not spiral out of control.)

Personal interactions with the workforce can take many different forms. Leaders can make presentations before large groups in auditoriums. There can be smaller, more informal departmental or function-focused meetings, where participants will feel freer to ask questions or present problems. Leaders who appear at these meetings without the usual retinue of direct reports signals that they are approachable and welcome interaction.

Leaders also can meet with a cross-section of employees in skip-level meetings, conduct spontaneous walkabouts to fill in the time between planned events, have lunch in the organization’s cafeteria, and drop in on the back office, the factory floor or a remote office where employees may never have seen them and will be particularly impressed. When leaders give employee awards at presentation ceremonies, the awards become particularly special. Praise from an employee’s direct supervisor is a strong motivator; from the organization’s leader it is even stronger. Effective leaders are generous with their praise whenever it is deserved.

PRESENT WITH POWER

Putting leadership on parade does not come naturally to some leaders, particularly those who have led primarily by issuing directives. But presenting with power is a skill easily learned. Once learned, it becomes a habit and each presentation becomes increasingly effective. In any meeting, large or small, the effective leader captures the listeners’ attention immediately, holds it for the duration of the presentation, and creates the kind of energy that generates action.

The leader should organize the message so it is clear and compelling, appealing to both the heart and head. Stories involve the audience and reveal the leader’s humanity, which is essential for establishing trust. They paint word pictures, with characters, settings and action. The leader makes deliberate use of wording, voice, posture, movement and timing.

The most powerful communication tools are the eyes. Steady, warm eye contact conveys credibility. Failure to make eye contact can signal unease, defensiveness or perhaps lack of candor. When talking with one person, the leader looks at the other’s eyes, then moves away to avoid causing discomfort. With a large group, he makes everyone feel included by making eye contact with one person in the audience for as long as it takes to express a thought, and then moves his eyes to someone else in a different part of the room.

When a leader is able to zero in with eye contact toward one audience member, surrounding audience members benefit too; studies have shown that all the audience members in the area around the person being addressed feel they’re being spoken to directly. Using the eyes this way also alleviates whatever anxiety the presenter may be feeling because speaking one-to-one to an individual comes naturally. In contrast, nervous speakers scan the audience, never finding one focal point, which increases their anxiety because the brain has too much information to process.

An academic study conducted by faculty at the University of Akron’s School of Communication in US showed that using the eyes appropriately is the single most important factor for communicating effectively.

GET OUT FROM BEHIND THE LECTERN

Effective presenters do not use a lectern, a barrier that separates the leader from the audience. They have no need for lecterns because they do not read from a written text. They understand that presentations that are read are considered old news and, as such, detract from the spontaneity that creates energy in the audience. Doing without visuals can be a particularly effective when the presentation is intended to inspire the audience rather than convey information.

Effective leaders showcase their passion by putting their whole body into the presentation. They support every statement with an appropriate gesture and make large body movements to underscore important points. They further accentuate these points with dramatic pauses or by raising or lowering their voice. Their choice of language demonstrates they are real because they avoid euphemisms, jargon and office-speak.

Although their presentation may appear spontaneous, they have carefully rehearsed. They’ve put aside extraneous content. They’ve identified Questions that may be asked prepared and succinct and persuasive answers . Though an initial presentation like this may require serious rehearsing, the process becomes easier as the leader seeks out opportunities to continue presenting. A seasoned speaker who gets a deep sense of pleasure from presenting can become encouraged to present his views about significant issues on the national stage. This further helps cement leadership positioning.

KNOWING YOURSELF AND THE ORGANIZATION

The “leadership on parade” process begins with leaders  honestly assessing how the workforce perceives them and how they in turn views the employees. Mistaken impressions can hinder communication and, with that, the leader’s effectiveness.

Leaders may misunderstand the workforce’s values, particularly if he is new. They may have come from a company whose employees value making lots of money but their new culture emphasizes a concept like “do no evil.” Judgments from trusted direct reports will be needed because even a small change that runs counter to the culture can have large repercussions.

The workforce may not have a good understanding of the leader either. The leader may have served for many years but not been very visible. Unknowingly, the leader may be sending out contrary signals. Is the leader shirt-sleeved or double-breasted? Occupying a walnut-paneled corner office or at the center of the floor? Each is making a values statement. With these and other choices, leaders must project their true selves.

This is not a call for the leaders to improve their “image”– a mere artifice; honest, effective communication is authentic.