5 Tips to Excel in Your Management Role
Taking on your first management role or any management role for that matter can be daunting. You have to build rapport with your team, meet company metrics and establish success all while getting your work done on a daily basis. While you can spent countless hours skimming the company’s website to figure out how you’ll make an impact on your team, it’s also important to also keep the below tips in mind.
1. Ask questions
You would think that this is self explanatory but you would be surprised the number of people who take on a leadership role and do not ask a sufficient amount of questions while in their role. Remember, you’re entering a new company which ultimately means there will be different politics, different systems and different communication styles. It’s important to ask questions not only before you start your role but during your role as well. Asking questions will ultimately equip you with the tools you need to gain success in your role.
2. Familiarize yourself with the company culture
Every company is different. As a leader, it’s important to note the culture for your last role may significantly differ from the culture in your current role. Study the culture and reach out to colleagues on Linkedin to find out more about the culture. If your organization is nationwide or international it is a great idea to set up Facetime or coffee dates with fellow leaders to find out what culture means to them and how they incorporate it into their everyday role.
3. Be Empathetic
Often times, some leaders can become complacent when it comes to establishing empathy. This in turn leaves their team to not feel committed to their role and as a result of this, turnover can run rampant in their organization. Don’t. Be. This. Leader. Learn to be empathetic and if you’re a bit lost on where to start watch the following YouTube video listed below.
4. Prioritize What’s Important
As a leader, you’ll be faced with multiple challenges and asks. It is essentially up to you to determine what holds the most value. The best way to approach this scenario is to prioritize what tasks are most important to you and your team. You have a deadline at 5 PM but you’re also needing to do an employee evaluation. The best way to tackle this situation is to divy your time with completing both roles. Perhaps do part of the employee evaluation on that day and continue the rest on another. Politely express your regrets to the employee. Remember, you don’t want to be a flake to your team.
5. Be An Active Listener
Often times, leaders can get in the continuous time loop of listening to react and not listening to learn. Whether that be listening to a fellow colleague discuss what they did for the weekend or listening to a different strategic direction the company should go in (to provide their own rebuttal). It’s a bad trait to have that most of us are guilty of doing. This is why as a leader, it is important to gain understand of a situation big or small. You can save yourself a lot of stress in the long run.
-The Lone Ranger
