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I disagree with most of what Analyst 1 said. I believe that asking how to be a good manager is a sign that you want to be a good manager. Every direct report will be different and you will need to adjust to their needs. As a manager, it is your job to flex to their needs and support them in the best way for them. With that said, be honest with your team. Provide honest feedback, share plans for their growth, and be honest about the company's direction. Know that you will have to put in more time and effort to grow and teach them; it may be faster for you to do it yourself or correct the mistake yourself but don't do it. Lastly, consider your own managers. What do you wish they did? What can you do to be a better manager than them?
Mentor
AGREE! Also, don’t be too hard on yourself. You WILL make mistakes and have failures… don’t beat yourself up about them. Learn from them and move on to do better in the future.
My perspective is a little bit different than those I've seen posted above. My job as a manager is to deliver on the company's goals while also developing people. This means I need to understand both the goals and the people, and at different times I will need to prioritize different things.
For me, this means that I need to find a balance between caring personally about my reports and finding ways to support their goals and needs while also holding them accountable to business needs. Sometimes, I'm going to have to go to my bosses and tell them we need to be flexible with someone for X reason. Other times, I need to give tough feedback and tell a report that they need to change something in order to meet expectations. Respect and trust are key.
I personally try to live the values I want the team to follow and never ask them to do something I wouldn't do. I set a high bar and absolutely support them so they can succeed. They know they can trust me to do what they say I will do and to have their backs.
Cut yourself some slack and don’t overthink it. You’re asking the right questions, and you’ve gotten some good advice (and some horrific advice). Everyone starts somewhere. You learn a lot as you go. Find a coach or a good mentor. Think about the great bosses you’ve hopefully had, and what made them great… and the bad bosses, and what made them bad.
Above all, approach leadership with humility, curiosity, and candor. It scales from one to n direct reports, opens your mind to learning and feedback, and brings others around you along on the journey.
Transitioning to a supervisor for me, was scary and had a few issues. My position was new and the people I was supervising didn’t want to have a supervisor at first.
Eventually, it all worked itself out. I would recommend that you make it a point to do team building activities. I manage 8-11 people at all times and they enjoy team lunches because it’s free food for them and it gets them a little time away from their computer.
I use it as an opportunity to talk to everyone at once and just kind of check in to see if they need anything.
And you don’t have a business degree? Management is more than managing people’s work. I would suggest studying people. You need to know your people. Their MBTI, etc., everything. If you’re going into it as a manager that wants to manage their work you will fail as a manager. It’s your job to DEVELOP people professionally. If you aren’t highly skilled in figuring out how to get your people to operate at their maximum potential, you should bow out now. You aren’t management material and you shouldn’t be being groomed to be a manager if you don’t know how to help people be the best version of themselves professionally. You shouldn’t even be asking this question. I’m kinda scared for your reports right now.
Analyst 1 - where do you work? Just so I make sure to keep away from ever having to deal with dumb ppl like you. 😆 Good thing you aren’t revealing your name.