The first 30 days as a new manager or boss are most crucial in the workplace. A lot of star performers find it difficult to perform as well or maintain their star status after moving to a senior management role. So, this article offers useful tips on how you should spend the first 30 days as a new manager so you can build a strong foundation for more success in the future.
5 Useful Tips To Navigate The First 30 Days As A New Manager
Listed below are the 5 strategic things you must do within one month of becoming a boss or manager of a team:
1. Learn about your stakeholders’ expectations:
Your stakeholders in the workplace include your partners, team members, vendors and suppliers, customers, seniors, etc. They are the interest groups and individuals that have ties with you.
All your stakeholders have wide-ranging expectations of you. And regardless of what you do in your organization, your ultimate job is to fix their problems.
So, identity your stakeholders and know their expectations.
Have a clear understanding of their mindset, needs, aspirations, and what they care about the most.
The insight you will get, as a result, will benefit you immensely. You will have a better chance of succeeding in your role as a manager. Moreover, you will get a crisp and clear picture of the lenses that will be used to judge your performance in the workplace.
2. Find out how your team likes to be managed:
Whether you are promoted from within the company, or you are new in the workplace, take some time to understand the preferred work style of all your team members.
Not everyone has the same preferences. For example, some people enjoy frequent check-ins, and some like to be left alone.
So, catch the preferences, likes, and dislikes of your team members. And get to the pulse of the team before you pick up speed as a manager.
When you identify, in the first 30 days, what drives your team to do the work, it will be easy for you to get the team projects finished in time.
3. Earn your team’s trust:
The best way to empower yourself as a leader and create an environment in which your team can flourish is to build trust and keep building it over and again.
Just like glue, the trust holds your relationship with your team together. Also, the team members feel safe to share their ideas with the managers whom they trust. So, make the best use of your soft-skills and gain your team’s trust.
Remember: To be able to relate well to others, you need to think, feel, speak, and behave at your best!
The support you will gain in turn from your team members will help you immensely in the long run.
4. Set quarterly goals for yourself:
Setting and completing quarterly goals is an effective way to build up momentum and organise your time and resources efficiently.
So, establish specific desired outcomes for the next 90 days that will keep you on track to fulfil the organisation’s long term objectives.
5. Ascertain your high-performance routine:
Being promoted to a new manager’s role and having people under your responsibility requires a worthwhile change in working style and routine.
Oftentimes, most of the emerging leaders and new bosses find themselves lagging on important projects. Consequently, they experience more stress at work. Also, they lose motivation in due course.
So, experiment with different systems, and discover the most helpful routine that increases your personal efficiency and fuels your high performance.
In my experience, executive presence and effective interpersonal skills form the bedrock for workplace success. They enable you to build trust, respect, and productive relationships between you and your coworkers. Your team finds you more approachable and therefore keeps the feedback loop open. As an effect, there is better management of tasks and timely completion of projects. And you get to perform your duties more fluidly.
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Wrapping Up
It is often said that when you become a new boss, your first 30 days are very crucial in the workplace. So, manage yourself more skilfully to drift through the first 30 days as a new manager successfully.
Invest your time, attention, and energy on identifying your stakeholder’s expectations and getting to the pulse of your team. Most importantly, make the best use of your soft-skills and gain your team’s trust.
The support you will gain in turn from your team members will help you go full-steam on the long journey ahead.