First-time manager tip: 4 leadership mistakes to avoid

Photo by Jonathan Borba

As a manager, try your best to avoid these 4 mistakes, which are well-intentioned, but produce “bad” – or unsustainable outcomes.

1: Trying to fix every problem you encounter

Solving problems like whack-a-mole might alleviate pressure in the moment, but it’s not sustainable and doesn’t enable other people to grow and develop their own problem solving muscles. It also sets the expectation that all problems should or will be solved by you, which is a dangerous precedent.

Try asking the person with the problem to come up with 3 solutions and then review those together and give them guidance. If that doesn’t work, then before solving the problem yourself, ask them to sleep on it or partner with a colleague for more ideas.

2: Focusing on defining/communicating the "how," rather than the "what" and most importantly, the "why"

Your team must be entrusted to figure out the how, just as your leaders should trust you to figure out the how. After all, you’re not doing the execution, so this is may be tantamount to overstepping your bounds.

Also, explaining the what is not enough; explaining why is essential to engaging peoples intrinsic motivation and without a clear and compelling why or what’s in it for me, you will be left to define the how, which is again unsustainable and pulls you away from managing the team to managing the work.

3: Trying to make friends with everyone on your team

It may be your desire to be friends with everyone, especially if you are managing your prior peers but that will interfere with your decision making sooner than later when you need to:

1. Say no

2. Communicate something people don’t like

3. Give someone on a less than excellent rating (and many companies either formally or informally require a normal distribution of ratings so not everyone gets the top score, and even if not, promotions and bonuses should not be distributed)

Don’t confuse this to mean don’t build friendships or be friendly or have positive interactions.

That’s great after all! The key is don’t “try” to become friends and don’t try to get everyone to like you. Let your relationships be what they naturally are, but you are a manager who needs to be impartial and objective at the end of the day

4: Treating everyone on your team the same

This has many meanings such as:

• People who want to be ICs vs managers

• People who have a drive to accelerate their career vs those who are happy to go slower

• Those who are motivated by each of the 3 Cs (compensation culture and challenges)

• Introverts and extroverts, learning styles (visual auditory and kinesthetic)

The more you can learn the nuances, styles and goals of your team, the better of a manager you can become. Everyone will want a different path, so study them and plan accordingly.

Of course this takes a lot of time, so it builds on all 3 prior issues - you can’t become a great people manager if you’re busy solving everyone’s problems, over-explaining the how to do their jobs, and trying to get everyone to like you

That’s all for today! Stay tuned to The Musing Mind for more leadership takeaways and sign up for newsletter to get more career advice and inspiration delivered regularly.

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