👊🚀 How to Kick A** in Your First Management Role

Last year, a mid-level creative person who had just learned that she was about to have a report at work asked me for advice.

She’d just negotiated for, and received, a gigantic pay bump from her previous job, more strategic responsibilities, and suddenly…a report that she needed to manage. As is often the case when we FINALLY get what we dream of…once she came down from the high, she was pretty stressed. She worried that she was not ready for this. That SHE should be the one doing the stuff that she’d be managing this other person to do, because she knew how to DO that stuff. Omg, friends, can you think of anything more relatable?

It got me thinking that it’s SO COMMON for workplaces to just THROW people into management without any training or prep whatsoever. Since I’m on one-woman-bat-out-of-hell-mission to improve the overall quality of creative leadership, I’m about to drop some new-manager tips on you. Maybe you don’t personally need these right now, but I bet you know someone who does or someone who aspires to lead others.

Tips For People Who Are Getting a Report for the First Time

1. SET UP AN INTRO MEETING

Gather information from them about what they do, their background, their interests, etc. What kind of experience are they looking for? This is a two-way conversation. Explain what your expectations are for in the person in this role as well. This helps you start building a relationship with them.

2. ESTABLISH AN ONGOING STATUS MEETING

Figure out what kind of cadence makes sense. Make a calendar invite so it’s set up for you and you don’t have to think about it. Default to whatever frequency and duration is actually productive. Do you have multiple reports? You might have to alternate between individual and group meetings. Strike a balance and keep the meeting no matter what. Do not let “emergencies” sidetrack you from the important work of becoming aligned with your team (even if it’s a team of two). I can’t tell you what’s right for your workplace - it might be 30 min twice a week or it might be daily for 5 minutes each time. Do what makes sense. Trim meetings down when you sense there are too many or they’re too long. Nothing’s worse than a pointless, way-too-long meeting.

4. KEEP STATUS MEETINGS PRODUCTIVE

Prep before the meeting: Come to the meeting with a list of things to get done/discuss. Follow it.

Timing: Show up on time. Don’t make meetings longer than a half hour unless you’re absolutely SURE you have more than 30 minutes’ worth of material to discuss. End the meeting when you’ve finished going through the list. Even if it was only 2 minutes long. Show people that you respect their time and that you expect the same.

Focus: Be primarily focused on explaining the tasks and checking in on status of things. A little jokey-ness and levity is okay, but then return to your focus.

Document: Take notes and distribute them if needed: Google Suite has this great feature where you can schedule a recurring meeting and then automatically create a notes doc for it. Yes, YOU need to take notes. The worst mistake I see is managers who think note-taking is for peons. Notes are power, because knowledge and documentation are power. Do not let an AI do this for you, it will come out as insane gibberish. (I’ll rant more on that later).

5. DELEGATION MINI-LESSON

Assign: Pick an item on the list that might be a good fit for the report. Vibe check how they feel about it. Do not pick some major item to start with. Pick something that will be a good test of their abilities without leading to critical issues if it has to be reassigned.

Contextualize & Set Timing Expectations: Provide instructions, assets, direction, context for the task or a contact they can follow up with for that. Set up a check in point ahead of time with the person to asses progress. I always prefer to ask the person to TELL ME when they think a reasonable check-in time is, if it’s possible. If there’s no time for that, “Do you think having a first draft is possible at X time?” Do not skip this.

Check In: Did they do the thing they were asked to do? Did they have enough information? Is the level of progress what you were expecting to see? Did they ask for help when they needed it? Etc. Do not either “ghost them” or “hound them”. Expect that finding a balance that is optimal for this person might be an ongoing process.

Re-assess and repeat: If the task you assigned wasn’t quite working out, you have some options. If there is time, I would highly encourage you to keep giving them feedback directly about how to improve. Often this is the part where inexperienced managers will give up easily and seek out some other person to do the task, or do it themselves. Remind yourself that part of your job is to train this person, and that learning often involves doing it wrong a few times (failure is the best teacher, honestly). However, I’d also recommend making the next task a bit lower risk or easier, until you see that they are easily meeting expectations, and then you can increase difficulty, check in a bit less frequently, etc. Conversely if they flew through it, increase the number or difficulty of tasks. People like challenges, they don’t like being set up to fail…common sense.

6. THINGS TO AVOID

Being overly involved with your report’s social life. I’m not saying don’t be friendly, don’t be kind, don’t genuinely care about them...but there is a line. You are not friends…so don’t go binge-drinking with them every weekend or invite yourself to their Friendsgivings. You might assume that people want you to be “cool” or "fun" or “oozing with talent” in order to respect you. But that’s not true. People have many friends in their lives, but very few bosses…you should therefore view being someone’s manager as a rare gift, and a privilege. This is your chance to give this person clear boundaries and clear ways to navigate to getting better experience and improving their career. Being overly in the weeds with someone's social life can either send a message that you’re insecure in your role and want validation from them…or that you expect people to fawn over you, that they have to “get in” with you to succeed at work, which…like, yikes. That doesn’t mean you can’t eventually be real friends, okay? Just not while there’s a power dynamic in place. Additionally, consider that you might someday have to severely reprimand or fire this person.

Doing stuff that’s HR’s job. Aka, do NOT help people navigate their tax forms and apartment leases and 401k options. You are not qualified to do that, and it’s also not your business.

Blatantly hounding your report outside of work hours, abusive language, other “terrible boss” stuff. I don’t have to say that, right?? If you’re here, you are not the type do this, I am sure :D

Well, that’s it for now and that’s quite a lot to digest already! I’m thinking of turning this into more robust guide for management, so let me know if you think that’s something you’d be interested in.

All my best,

P.S. Do me a favor and reply right now with your current challenge, desire or hurdle that you're looking for some help with. If I get enough interest in a particular topic, I'll make a newsletter for it.