How to Succeed as a New Manager After a Battlefield Promotion
Image Credit: Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
What to do—and not do—when you get are unexpectedly thrust into a management role
Often, emerging leaders receive promotions into management roles during regular compensation and promotion cycles, or when a senior leader announces their exit and long-standing succession plans are put into action.
Other times, change happens quickly and unexpectedly after layoffs, reorgs, or the abrupt departure of a leader who got a great opportunity elsewhere or wants to spend more time with their family. In these instances, instead of getting promoted through traditional advancement processes, one person gets plucked from a team for the empty management role—like a soldier getting a real-time promotion on the battlefield to fill a leadership void.
If you recently received one of these battlefield promotions, you might be experiencing a mix of emotions: part excitement, part dread, part grief. The bad news is, 15% of your colleagues have been laid off; the good news is, you just got a promotion.
After coaching literally hundreds of leaders through every kind of promotion, downturn, reorg, and so on, we’ve learned three dos and three don’ts that will ensure you step into your new leadership role with confidence.
3 steps to take right away in your new leadership role
Step #1: Design the alliance.
It can be awkward for new managers when the circumstances have changed so quickly. Yesterday, your team members were your peers; today, you’re their boss. Your first order of business to ensure a successful transition and working relationship is to level with your team and discuss how to move forward together.
First, set up 1-on-1s with each of your new direct reports the first week after your promotion. Focus the conversations on two parts—start with their needs: “What do you need to be successful in your role?” Then, share yours: “Here’s what I’m going to need from you for us to have a successful relationship.” Be sure to address:
Communication: E.g. “I prefer emails for bigger project debriefs and deliverables requiring review. I prefer Slack for quick questions and short updates.”
Accountability: E.g. “I know I have a tendency to hyper-focus on the details, but it’s not always helpful. I’m relying on you to call me out when I start walking into micro-management territory.”
Feedback: E.g. “I receive feedback best when it’s written in an email and we can schedule a time to discuss it afterward, rather than delivered in the moment during conversations or via text messages.”
Remember: Your goal with these meetings is not just to share information, but also to build trust. Showing too much self-interest undermines trust, so be sure to spend most of the time talking about what they need from you to be successful, not the other way around.
Step #2: Get crystal clear on roles and responsibilities.
When top performers are promoted to management positions for the first time, the most common mistake they make is staying in “individual contributor” mode and continuing to do their old job. As a new manager, it’s incumbent on you to outline your new responsibilities for your team so they know where their responsibilities end and yours begin. It may not be enough to simply take on the job description of whoever held the role before you. In some cases, you may even have a role that didn’t exist before.
In either situation, approach this exercise with curiosity and a spirit of collaboration, and ask your team to hold you accountable so you don’t slip into old habits. This is your chance to redesign the team’s roles and responsibilities in a way that works better for everyone.
Step #3: Over-index on feedback.
Being new to anything can bring about lots of experimentation and, yes, mistakes. Learning how to lead is no exception. To learn what works best for you and your team (and what doesn’t), ask them to give you way more feedback than feels reasonable from the start. To solidify your new role, tell them you’ll be giving them more feedback than usual, as well.
Not all feedback is created equal, however. To give feedback in a way that builds trust and drives behavior change, remember that feedback should be:
Recent: The longer you go without sharing feedback, the less effective it is. “Yesterday, this happened…” is better than “A month ago…”
Specific: Using the Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI)™ model—“This was the situation, this is what you did, and this is the impact it had on me and my work”—provides a clear outline for effective communication and helps focus feedback on definitive instances that can be addressed or amplified instead of generalizations.
More positive than negative: Studies have found the ideal positive-to-negative feedback ratio to be 5:1—five comments reinforcing behaviors you want more of for every one comment about behaviors you want less of.
Having clear feedback channels under new leadership helps avoid discord among the team and ultimately makes course-correcting and building trust much easier.
3 mistakes to avoid as a new manager
Even with these guidelines, you’re going to make mistakes—that’s part of the deal. But certain mistakes are morest costly than others. Here are three mistakes to avoid out of the gate:
Mistake #1: Getting stuck in the friend zone
If your team can’t make the psychological leap of seeing you as their manager, you’re not giving them good enough reasons to. They need to see you providing clarity on the new team structure and stepping up the feedback game in a way that helps them continue to learn and grow. If they feel they’re growing under your guidance, they’ll respect you as a leader, not just as a peer.
Mistake #2: Using your promotion as a power trip
While you do need to step into your new authority, keep your ego in check. If you overcorrect and start micromanaging and using your newfound power to the extreme, there will be mutiny. Remember your role, trust your team, and listen to their feedback. If you do get feedback that you are micromanaging, it’s generally a clear sign that you’ are acting out of fear. Ask yourself, “What am I afraid of? What do I need to feel more confident in this role?”
Mistake #3: Putting all your energy into managing up
After an unexpected promotion, some people do everything they can to hold onto their new status and ensure their superiors know how grateful they are. “Mo Money, Mo Problems,” right? They prepare endless reports, try to get into leadership meetings, and generally focus on the higher-ups’ needs instead of sharing that energy with their team and trying to do great work. If you start to leave your team in the dust (or the dark), performance and morale will most certainly take a dive, and then the higher-ups won’t care how beautiful your reports look.
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In the end, being a good manager is more about having the right mindset than using any simple hack or short-cut. You were promoted for a reason, so own it. If you approach your new role with a healthy blend of humility, curiosity, and confidence, you will build the trust and earn the respect from your team to ensure your battlefield promotion is a rousing success.