This is probably the most common mistake first time managers face, and it’s easy to see why. But while knowledge of the role is important, management itself requires a completely different skillset. It’s easy to assume that the skills that made you a good salesperson will make you a good sales manager. Relying on the Same Skills that Got You Promoted Want to become a better professional in just 5 minutes?ġ. So here are the top mistakes that most first time managers make the hard way. We’ve asked around, and put together some sage advice from expert managers – people who manage managers, and know what it takes to overcome that initial learning curve. But there’s good news – you don’t have to suffer like I did (or like my team did). Unfortunately, my experience as a first-time manager is more rule than exception. Eventually, I became a good manager, but not without some major growing pains. Luckily for me (and my team), I had great mentors who showed me what being a manager is really about. And not only did I hinder their growth by always solving their problems for them, I eventually became a bottleneck. While I thought I was playing the hero, my team saw me as a martyr. In reality, I was doing my teammates a gigantic disservice. It was faster and easier than guiding my direct reports to the right answer, and when time was of the essence, it seemed like the right call. When people came to me with problems, I would just jump in and fix things. One major mistake – I thought I had to be the smartest person in the room. I quickly found that management was a whole different ball game, and the skills that had made me a decent practitioner were much different from the ones I needed to be a good manager. I had my very own direct reports (two!), an office (that I shared), and the kicker, actual business cards. With a few years of successful wordsmithing and journalist wrangling under my belt, it was time for me to make my big move to middle management. (The job required me to do things like obsess over word choice and agonize over grammar, so I was a natural.) It was early in my career as a communications pro, and I had showed some promise as a practitioner.
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