How to ace being a first-time manager

Pick: Employee’s personal crisis or a client’s looming deadline?

Photo by Anna Shvets from Pexels

Not everyone’s journey to becoming a manager for the first time is the same, but the premise and challenges we face are. We get promoted to a manager level because we’re good at our work, not because we know how to manage people (which is 80% of a manager’s work). Smoothly handling a team, clients, deadlines, and more can come only with experience and practice. I was given no manual — but here’s one for you.

Hiring the right person/people

I was interviewing candidates for the first time in my life. After a couple of interviews, I realized that being prepared as an interviewer is as important as you would be as an interviewee. Respect the candidate’s time by preparing a set of questions before your meeting. Spend time crafting your list of role-specific questions to gauge your candidate’s capability against the role requirements.

For example, if you’re hiring a social media manager, ask questions like:

• Social media is constantly evolving — how do you keep up with the trends? What’s one trend that you’re closely following?
• Which tools do you use?
• How many clients can you work with at one time?

As I work at a consulting organization, it was important to know whether the candidate would be able to handle multiple clients from different industries. While you might be interviewing a social media rockstar, she might be comfortable in a role that only focuses on one client instead of balancing multiple — so the last question is a must.

Additionally, I was aware of my hiring manager’s interviewing style so I knew not to ask the same questions she would. You lose the opportunity to know different sides of a candidate and tire her out by repeating the same questions.

Practicing empathy in difficult times

What do you do when an employee is going through a personal crisis but big deadlines are around the corner? How do you ask the employee to complete an urgent task when he is not in the right mind space?

Being empathetic is relatively easy for most people on a regular day, but practicing it when it’s most needed defines your character as a manager and a leader. For instance, when your team member asks you for a sudden leave for 5 days before a big deadline, don’t think twice before approving the leave if it’s an urgent and important situation. Instead of panicking about meeting the deadline, ask him how you and the rest of the team can help him.

So every once in a while when everything is going well, life throws you a curveball. While you can’t escape or dodge it, you can be prepared for it. For instance, I learned that I should keep sufficient buffer days between when a deliverable needs to be completed and when it has to finally be sent to the client. If you haven’t left any buffer days, adapt — I must-have skill if you work in a small firm. Divide the work between your team and yourself. Spending extra time on a task to help out a team member creates a culture one would want to work in.

To assert your expertise or not?

The challenge I’m about to describe might be unique to people working at marketing consultancies or agencies but the lesson applies to all leaders.

Now that you’re a manager, you directly interact with clients. It’s easy when the client and you are on the same page. It gets hard when the client wants you to do X but you’d rather do Y. After working in a field for long enough, you just know what works so you’re adamant about your opinion. Especially, as a consultant, it only makes sense to want to guide the client with your expertise. But my manager reminded me that we ultimately work for the client, so there will be some instances when we have to do exactly what they want. Don’t want to mindlessly agree with the client?

Do one thing. Tell them what the potential outcome of the decision will look like if you follow their solution vs yours.

First, remind the client of the objective or problem. Let’s assume, the client wants to increase brand awareness. Simply point out to them that picking an influencer of your choice could lead to a 20% increase in reach versus a 5% increase if you pick the client’s choice. When the client sees that the outcome of his decision doesn’t solve his original problem, he’ll take your suggestion. If he doesn’t, simply follow his decision, no questions asked.

Prioritizing leadership over friendship

Managing people is difficult not only when you’re doing it for the first time but also when you become good friends with your direct reports. In my initial days as a manager, when I had to make tough decisions or give them harsh feedback, I had to choose between leadership and friendship. Sure on paper, it’s a no-brainer. But in a real-life situation, when you’re tight with your team, you put their feelings first. The first (and last) time I hesitated while making the choice, I knew I had failed as a manager.

Luckily right when I was going through this challenge I was reading No Rules Rules — the book on the culture at Netflix. It taught me that giving immediate and direct feedback to team members helps them, their work, and consequently the organization improve and grow — which is the ultimate goal. I shared this learning from the book with my team and reminded them that they should take the critique in the right spirit considering its individual and company-wide benefits. Now I am assertive with them, without feeling guilty about being a manager first and friend second.

Always keep the client in the loop

A common mistake can be to work on a deliverable without updating the client about the smaller milestones. For example, I was creating a panel of influencers for a brand, so I had to research, shortlist, and reach out to influencers in our niche. On the morning of day 9 of the task, my client was concerned that no progress had been made, when in fact by the evening of the same day, an entire list of influencers who agreed to be on board would be ready.

The problem here is that for the 9 days your client doesn’t hear any updates from you, they misinterpret it as no work being done — which might not even be true like it weren’t in my case.

The solution is simple. Notify your client every time you tick an actionable off from your larger deliverable. This way you can also get their inputs and work accordingly.

Final notes

My biggest takeaway is that knowing how to manage (and lead) people is not something you’re born with, but something you grow into. So along the way, you’ll make mistakes — as I did — and if you learn from them, you’ll improve. The tips I shared are applicable in my work environment and context. So if you work at a small, young organization, it might resonate with you. For the rest of you, tailor my recommendations to your situation.

Stay tuned for part 2.