So You’re a Manager…Now What?

I was 28 years old and had found myself in a position that I had severe reservations about: I was just promoted

to the Business Manager position at Ottawa University. I had only worked at Ottawa for 5 years, as a Financial

Aid Advisor, which was my only true full-time job of my short career. Due to a restructure I was promoted to this

management role without applying for it, interviewing, or having to sell myself in any way. All of a sudden I not

only had new roles in terms of day-to-day tasks, but now I was a supervisor…and I had zero training to go with it.

I had always enjoyed working with people more than working with tasks or numbers, but now I was responsible

for the supervision of subordinate staff, some of which were recently just my peers. While I was grateful for the

promotion, I was also scared out of my mind and had many sleepless nights during my first year in this role. Even

though I had earned my BA degree with a double-major in Management and Business Administration and later

my MBA degree, this was now reality and no longer simply a management class.

Now five years later I look back at that stressful period of time and realize that while it was challenging, it really

wasn’t as traumatic as I had made it out to be. I had always thought of myself as a leader, since leadership and

management are two completely different distinctions, and anyone within an organization can be a leader, but

today I’d like to share with you practices I’ve adopted during my first five years as a supervisor that has led me

to become an effective manager. I still have lots of room for growth and I’ve made more than my share of

mistakes along the way, but I’d like to share with you the wisdom and lessons I live by as fairly new manager.

Whether you are entering your first official management position or have been in a supervisory role for decades

I feel these 8 simple lessons of mine are worth sharing with all. No one source is a responsible for these lessons

but instead they are a culmination of my experiences over the years.

1) Trust Your Employees (unless given a reason not to): My mentors over the years have always stressed

the importance of optimism and looking for the positive qualities in everyone, and a good manager

knows when to put his or her trust in employees; and once that is achieved the manager can “get out of

the way” and let the employee do his or her job effectively. Certainly if you are given a reason not to

trust an employee a different approach must be taken, but having optimism and faith in your employees

is the key to having a productive relationship. Sometimes I question why I’m even needed as a manager

because my employees know their jobs so well, but I’ve been told by a mentor that that is a good feeling

to have because employee empowerment leads to positive work results.

2) “We” Are in this Together: When I was a Financial Aid Advisor, I often used the terminology “I” and

“my” in a lot of my daily discussions. I would refer to an opinion as “I feel this way” or “My students are

taking up a lot of time this week.” As a manager, it is not about the “I” but about the “we.” Humility is

one of the best virtues any manager can possess and simple communication such as saying “our

students” or “our campus” versus “my students” and “my campus” goes a long way. Whenever I refer to

my subordinate employees I specifically refer to them as my co-workers that I work “with” them

because while I do have a position of authority, it is clearly a partnership and team effort amongst all of

us to achieve company goals. My boss always refers to me as his co-worker and partner, not simply his

subordinate employee, and that has always been highly motivational to me because of the respect

involved on both ends.

3) Don’t Hold onto Your Previous Job: If you’ve recently been promoted to a management role from a

previously non-supervisory position, you’ll most likely be training your replacement on your old job.

Proper training is very important, but a good manager knows when to step back and allow that new

employee the chance to truly own his or her job. A manager should always be open to coaching and

assistance, but after training has been completed a new manager must resist the temptation to do his or

her old job. This can often be challenging when a co-worker, peer, or other stakeholder asks you to do

something you’ve done regularly for years, and instead you have to know it’s appropriate, for the sake

of your subordinate employee, to refer those tasks to away from yourself and to this proper individual.

During my first years in management I struggled to let go of my former job duties, but I was eventually

able to do so by empathizing with subordinate employees by thinking about how I’d feel if my new boss

wasn’t empowering me to own my new job duties.

4) Embrace Constructive Conflict: People often associate conflict as a negative act, yet a lot of positive

results can come out of a difficult situation. Managers should be open to hearing the suggestions of

their subordinate employees and vice versa. Furthermore, performance reviews should be timely and

not one-sided in which both parties exchange constructive criticism on how to better processes and

their overall relationship. Building relationships takes time, to build trust and respect, but encourage

your employees to consistently provide you with feedback on how you can be a better manager, as long

as it’s done in a respectful and professional manner. I’ve been able to strengthen my relationships with

co-workers once I’ve been able to have brutally honest conversations with them about how we truly feel

about one another in a professional sense. I always ask the employees I supervise how I can better

support them instead of just what they can do better for me.

5) Learn How to Say “No”: If you were promoted to become a first-time manager, as I was, without any

training or advanced noticed, it was easy to say “yes” and accept the job simply due to the initial

excitement of having a new role. However, once you have the management job you’ll most likely still

have administrative duties mixed with supervisory responsibilities. When your supervisor, or other peers

at your company, ask you to volunteer for additional roles be sure to do an assessment of your priorities

before blindly saying “yes” to all additional tasks. While saying “yes” is a noble gesture that shows you

are a team player, you are not doing yourself any service by setting yourself up to be burned out and

subsequently an ineffective manager due to overload.

6) Remember that Work Isn’t Fair: “Life isn’t fair” is one of the key concepts of the bestselling book Don’t

Sweat the Small Stuff and this statement applies greatly to the workplace. As a manager you will see

other managers get promoted ahead of you, pay raises given to individuals that you may or may not

agree with, and you’ll receive feedback from your subordinate employees on the need for more tools to

do their job. Sometimes those tools are job flexibility, sometimes it’s a pay raise, and sometimes it’s

hiring another employee. Unfortunately, working in the business world where there is a scarcity of

resources, it’s never possible to meet everyone’s needs and there will be many times you see a business

decision take place that makes you say to yourself “that’s not fair.” Managers must try to be equitable,

but the reality is that this is not always possible, and coming to terms to this early on in your career will

make you a more successful manager and overall human being. Life’s not fair…neither is business.

7) A Healthy Dose of Challenge and Protection: As a manager, it is your job to challenge your employees

on a regular basis to help them grow in their current roles and hopefully into greater roles within your

organization. Challenges should include attainable and measurable goals, and the employee should

always have a chance to give feedback on these challenges, even if he or she disagrees with the task at

hand. While challenging your employees also be their protector. Depending on the hierarchical structure

of your company, there may be leaders at higher levels that want to ask too much of your employees,

ask that your employees do more for less pay or benefits, or recommend that your employees’ positions

be eliminated. As a manager, when working with exceptional employees, you should be your

subordinate’s strongest advocate and ally when difficult corporate decisions are made, such as

restructuring and downsizing. A good manager knows when it’s worth the risk to stand up for an

extraordinary employee, knowing how impactful that employee is to the overall benefit of the company.

8) Killing Pessimism with Kindness: As stated earlier, conflict is a necessary part of life, and life is not fair.

As a new manager you most likely will have disagreements and heated exchanges with your employees,

for a variety of reasons. A good manager does not outright blame but searches for solutions and looks

for growth in every mistake or missed opportunity. When an employee interacts with you who has a

negative or angry attitude, stay calm and be kind. It’s that simple. You may not agree and you may not

come to an instant solution to the conflict, but I’ve never heard anyone say they left a miserable job

because his or her boss was too kind. Kindness is simple. Kindness is magic, and if you’re unsure of how

to be kind remember these simple acts that we all learned in childhood: 1) Say “Please” and “Thank

You” and 2) Always take the time to ask your employees “How are you doing?” and really mean it. As a

manager you may not be able to solve your employee’s problems immediately, but being a kind listener

goes a long way in building rapport.

As stated above, these eight lessons are an accumulation of years of reading books, taking classes, and real life

experiences as I now find myself in my fifth year in an official management role. I still have a lot of room for

improvement, but as a new manager the most important, yet simple, advice is not to give up and to remember

that human relationships are supposed to be challenging; that’s why when they work out it is so rewarding. I’m

still learning and hope that you, whatever your present role is, keep learning, too, as the “human equation” is

much more complex (and important) than any mathematical equation.

For further reading on my management philosophy, two books that heavily influenced me as a first-time

manager are: The First-Time Manager by Loren B. Belker, Jim McCormick, and Gary S. Topchik and Leading with

Kindness: How Good People Consistently Get Superior Results by William Baker and Michael ‘OMalley, Ph.D.

Brian Patterson, MBA

Campus Manager at Ottawa University – Wisconsin