Stepping into a leadership role brings exciting new challenges—and demands a fresh set of skills. But success as a new manager isn’t just about what you gain; it’s also about what you leave behind.
Two common behaviors that often carry over from individual contributor roles can hold new leaders back: 1) staying on the sidelines when it comes to strategic decisions and 2) jumping in to do the work instead of leading it.
Let's explore these further.
Understanding Strategic Decisions
New leaders typically rise into their positions from an individual contributor role, in which they were assigned work and expected to complete that work as well as they possibly could. As individual contributors, they may or may not have worked with leaders who were strong communicators about strategic context. As new managers, however, it’s important that they understand the importance of being able to provide this for their teams.
New managers may think that making big strategic decisions isn’t part of their job and, therefore, they don’t need to stay awake at night worrying about them. And that may be true. They’re probably not making the big bets in the organization. However, it is their job to understand what those decisions are and why they’re being made so that they can communicate to their team within that context. In doing so, they’ll develop their own strategy toolkit by finding ways to better understand the decisions they’re supporting, and their team will be far more engaged in what they’re doing.
Resisting the “Doer” Instinct
The second behavior new managers may struggle with is the temptation to roll up their sleeves and help fix every problem they see. After all, they’re good at getting the work done. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been promoted.
But if they’re constantly stepping in to do the work and put out fires, they risk losing the time they need to focus on the big picture, develop their team, and ask the strategic questions that matter.
The bottom line is that being a new manager isn’t just about gaining new skills. It’s also about letting go of old behaviors that may no longer be beneficial.
