With the uncertainty that still exists around, “what’s next”, COVID, flu season, war, threats, politics, and how we work, leaders are looking, more and more, to coaches for a dependable, reliable, impartial, skill enhancing, confidential relationship that can form part of their personal Board of Directors.
Two of the people I worked with this week, one a client and one a potential client, were both figuring out how to continue to grow. They were teaching themselves about how to continue learning - they were still open, agile and adapting.
On the other side, I hear clients say, “I got this!”. And they do. They’ve worked hard and they own it. They make it theirs’ and they keep the hard won victory close. In fact, they use the same approach over and over - “I got this!”.
From the time we first joined the workforce we’ve always done our best. We’ve put in the hours, done the work, worked hard to get somewhere. You’ve developed your skills, you’re good at what you do. Over time, people recognized your abilities! You may have won awards or received recognition for your effort in other ways. This was all based on your individual performance. You're a Rockstar now. Some in your organization may even believe you are ready to take on new responsibilities. They offer and change your job to one that manages people directly based on your previous Rockstar performance. You are now a first-time manager.
"How do you be?" Rather than, "How do you do?" might be a strange way to meet and greet someone you’ve never met before - “Hi Steve, how do you be today!?”. It’s a question, however, we too infrequently ask ourselves - how am I being right now? When you think about managing other people you must first understand that “you cannot manage other people unless you manage yourself first” (Drucker). First-time managers this is for you:
I was going to spend this week’s writing time continuing to talk about first-time managers and how to avoid the first time manager syndrome. However over the last week I've been spending a lot of time getting reacquainted with strengths and the power they have when we know what ours are! Avoiding first-time manager syndrome requires you to know what your strengths are and how you do, or do not use them regularly. So I want to share with you today why strengths are important.
Last week I wrote about the predicament of the first time manager. For some of you I'm sure it seemed a little bleak. The truth of the matter is that even those of us, who may not have all the innate skills necessary to be perfect first-time managers, can be successful by doing 6 things well as I outline in “How to keep your Rockstar status as First-time Manager.” I’ll share a couple of those things here.
