New to Leadership? Here are 4 Mistakes You Should Make Right Away

08.25.2020

Congratulations on reaching the next big milestone in your career; managing people! When you’re new to leadership, it can often be overwhelming to know where to start. You are probably trying to navigate your new responsibilities and figure out where to start when it comes to team building. How do you bond with your team? How do you gain your team’s respect? How are you going to get all the work done, reach your personal goals and the goals your boss sets for you and your team? No one ever really wants to make a mistake, but here are four that you are likely to make as a new leader. 

 

Now, if you’re aware of them, you might be able to avoid making them, but if you find you may have already made one or more of them, or are on the road to making one of these mistakes, know that you’re not alone, and they’re all “fixable.”

 

You’re Not Investing In Peer Relationship Development

You’ve probably heard the old saying, “It’s lonely at the top.” When you’re in a position to manage people, you have access to information that other employees aren’t privy to, and it’s accompanied by an implied understanding that you will not share it with anyone that isn’t supposed to have it. This can make new leaders feel lonely, and unsure of who they should be talking to. Navigating your new role and new power can be tricky, but you shouldn’t go it alone, because your tenure and effectiveness will depend on you having peers that like you and trust you. As Martin Zwillng explains in his article on Forbes.com, Your Success At Work Depends on Peer Relationships, “More importantly, we all need to develop the right relationships, and actively avoid those types that are not right for the business, or not right for our career at a particular point in time.”

 

You’re Not Paying Attention to the Big Picture

Because you’re slightly overwhelmed with figuring out who you are as a manager, how to balance the new demands on your time, and simply getting your team moving, you have your eye on what’s directly in front of you, but not necessarily some of the bigger picture pieces that you’ll need to start thinking about. This FastCompany.com article gives five great tips on making sure you’re not so focused on the little things that you’re missing out on the stuff that can really matter.

 

You Don’t See Your Mistakes, and Don’t Correct Them Quickly

Admitting to a mistake, fixing the problem and ensuring it won’t happen again can actually strengthen your relationships with clients and colleagues if you handle it quickly and properly.  However, you have to be able to see that you’ve made a mistake. If you’re so heads down just trying to acclimate to your new role, or haven’t ever been good at taking stock of your own performance, seeing a mistake before it happens will be a challenge for you. You can get better at identifying mistakes before they happen by asking colleagues for help, having your work reviewed by an objective and knowledgeable colleague, and learning from other people’s mistakes. Also, if you can find the root cause for your mistake and prevent it from happening again, you’ll save yourself the irritation of having to make the same mistake twice. Here are six steps to fixing any mistake at work.

 

You Want Your Team to Like You

You might be so focused on getting your team to like you that you end up sacrificing gaining their respect. Instead of “buying their love” with a happy hour financed by you, or taking on work that you should be delegating, get back to the basics. Seek out each one of your team members to get to know them individually. Don’t promise things that you can’t deliver on, and consider supplementing your on the job training to becoming a great manager with a professional development class. Here are ten cheap or free options you can enroll in today.

 

It’s going to take you a minute to feel comfortable in your new role. Even if you’re on your A-game all the time and do everything in your power to be a consummate professional, you’re human, and you’re going to make blunders as a new manager. The best thing anyone can do is recover from them graciously and learn from them to move forward. Congrats on your new role, you’re going to be a great leader!