HOW TO: Manage - Start with the right expectations

A discouraged new manager sought my advice one evening after work. The month before she had been promoted to manage two workers. The promotion was a reward for her exceptional performance on the job. She knew the work better than anyone else in the company did. As a worker she had accomplished an enormous quantity and a superior quality of work that had given her great satisfaction.

She was discouraged because at the end of her first month as a manager she felt she had accomplished less with two direct reports than she could have accomplished on her own! She lamented that she could not get any real work done - that her time was constantly used up with issues that had nothing to do with the work itself.

What was she doing wrong?

I waited until she had finished venting. I let her talk out the frustrations in managing people who may have skills or ambition less than her own. I listened as her voice wavered when she spoke of her confusion about why motivation and excellence did not come wholly from within. I heard her frustration that her new staff was not productive enough.

When she quieted, I sighed with resignation at the inevitableness of it. And I said the only thing I could possibly say to put her situation in context.

I said: "Welcome to management."

My young friend was shocked. She expected wisdom and got what she thought was a wisecrack. But it was wisdom indeed. It was also a touchstone that being a new manager is rarely what you anticipate it will be, regardless of who you are or how successful you may have been.

Like so many of us before her, she had brought false expectations to her new position as a manager. One among them was that now that she had people reporting to her, that her productivity and her success would be increased by a multiplier equal to the number of her direct reports. Another was that the people part of the management would weigh less on her than the work part.

But, management is not like that.

A woman typically achieves a management position because she excels at the work. As women in business push against the still-in-place glass ceilings of management positions, they have to adapt to the realities of what good management requires of them, and tune in to what good management delivers back in the form of job satisfaction.

Being a manager means that you accept responsibility not just for the quantity and quality of the work itself, but also for the efficiency, growth, success, and professional happiness of the people who report to you. To be a manager means you must guide, direct, instruct, mentor, discipline, control and lead other people.

And you must do all of this while you meet the productivity requirements of the business.

To be a good manager, start with a clear understanding of what you are tasked to do, which is much more than just the work. Focus first on the people who report to you. It is the people who will make the success or the failure. Process is important, but people are more important to success.

Begin by listening. Interview each person privately.

• Ask about their background.
• Ask them to explain what work they do, and how they do it.
• Ask what they would do differently if they could.
• Ask them what is their biggest problem.
• Ask them what is their greatest success.
• Ask what they want to do.
• Ask them what they want to learn.
• Ask them what management style they think brings out the best in them
• Ask them what they think you need to do to be a success.

Work to find out who they are, what they need, and how you can share your own excellence with them.

The greatest mistake of new managers is to think that because they are managers they are supposed to know the right answers. In reality, they are supposed to discover the right answers, and to keep discovering them as the business grows and changes.

Becoming a manager is very similar to becoming a parent. The amount of training is always insufficient. The level of responsibility and commitment required for both is always underestimated. The adventure often takes surprising turns that could not be anticipated.

And the rewards and satisfactions cannot be imagined when the journey begins.

Over the next few weeks Women in Business will continue the series HOW TO: Manage.

Copyright © 1998, 1999, 2000 by D.E. Summerville. All rights reserved.

The advice and suggestions in the Women in Business column are solely those of the author. DC Web Women assumes no responsibility for its content.

Back to Top