Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome.
I'm glad you're here. I know for some of you you are
in a new fiscal year and I want to remind you that if that's
true then your budget for professional development, might
have reset and this is a great time to have a conversation with
your manager about your goals for the year.
What kind of professional development?
Support you want. So you can continue to learn and
grow to make that conversation a part of your performance review
because it is to your organization's benefit that you
demonstrate responsibility for your career, for your
development and growth. And the more that you learn,
especially when it comes to your people manager skills.
The better that is for your organization as well as for you.
So there might be budget That is just waiting to be applied to
support you and your growth. Check out courses, check out
coaches, check out conferences, online and person.
There's so much available to you right now, and of course, if you
want my help, you can always come check out my website, get
in touch and we'll talk about it.
Okay. Now, I hope you also listened to
my last episode. With Lawrence Patrick, isn't he
amazing? He is so smart and so
insightful. And he, I just love the stories
he shared and all of his insights about being a people
manager about working with different personalities, about
managing up about really trusting yourself.
He has had so much to offer and I'm so glad you got to hear from
him. Because I really believe that
you will you will get so much out of that conversation.
So if you didn't listen to that, you know, make sure that you
save it and listen to it at some point because there were a lot
of treasures that he shared that I want you to have.
Now, one of the things that came up in that conversation that I
wanted to dedicate some time in this episode for was this idea
of you know, as an AS As a manager, as a person who is
working with others, you may find yourself in positions where
you actually don't know what you're doing.
And I want to offer that this happens more often than you
realize. I know for me for a long time
like for many, many years of my career, I had this belief that
someone who was a manager who was in a higher level risk level
of responsibility in the organization, My belief was they
were in that role because they knew what they were doing and
what I have come to learn what I want to tell you is that is not
true and Lawrence talked about that too.
For a lot of reasons you know especially if you're in a hyper
growth organization, people end up in roles where you don't know
what you're doing and my own experience.
It's working in large organizations you know many
years ago. The very first time when I was
promoted and was managing a team of people.
This wasn't a very large Global organization and I had this
thought of, oh, great now I'm in manager and now that I've been
promoted and I have a team, you know, there's probably some kind
of manager meeting that I'll get invited to where people will
teach me and tell me what I need to know in order to be a great
people manager. And that didn't happen.
It was, it was like, you know, congratulations on your
promotion, here's your title change.
You know, at the time for me, it was a very small salary
increase. It wasn't even a significant
change in compensation, but now I had 18, people who are
reporting to me and it was like, you know, go do, go do that, go
do that, people manager thing and there was actually very
little a little guidance for me on how to do that.
You know, I was in that role for, I think it was about six
months before my company sent me to a three-day training for
managers, and this was just how it worked in that organization.
I think it was every six months, they would pull together.
Several of the managers, and there would be a training.
And but, you know, but all of the time in between It was just
making it up as I went along and I mention that, because I think
this is really common in every size organization.
So, if you're in a very small organization or in a very new
one, you may not have the infrastructure, you may not have
the internal function built around manager development, so
there's a lot of making it up as you go along.
But this also shows up in large organizations, because it can be
really Ali tricky to to kind of coordinate the timing of the
need of when a person arrives into a managerial role and what
is the right training or development or program for them.
So I see this as something that shows up really in every
industry, in every size of organization.
And I think it's so important to tell you because you might be
like me thinking. Oh, Like I I don't actually know
what I'm doing. I just got promoted.
I have no idea what I'm doing. I thought, I knew what I was
doing and now I'm suddenly feeling worried, and this is
what tends to happen. So if you have this thought, I
don't know what I'm doing. You might freak out, you might
fear that other people will find out.
You might fear messing up and feel this anxiety.
This Realization of. Oh my gosh, I actually don't
know what I'm doing. What if I'm doing it wrong?
What if other people find out? I don't know what I'm doing.
What if they think? I'm, you know, they're paying me
this big salary but I don't actually know how to do this.
I've never done this before. You might think I should know
what I'm doing. That's a thought kit that can
come in. You might be in your role for a
month or two or three, or five and you're still thinking, I've
been here for five months, I I feel like I still don't know
what I'm doing. You might also think, you know,
being a manager or being a leader.
That means I'm supposed to know what I'm doing.
I should have this figured out by now and all of that ends up
creating a lot of anxiety. It becomes intensified,
especially in any kind of manager, or leadership role
because there is higher visibility.
So, you have your tea, Team looking to you, but you also
have your manager and upper management looking to you to
lead and to drive results for the collective of people that
are within your scope of care. So, that higher, visibility
creates more intensity creates more anxiety.
You might also have the thought when you're in that headspace
of, am I adding value? Which is really the thought of,
oh, no, I'm not adding value. And what if people find out, so,
all of this creates a feeling of being overeager of being
anxious, a feeling like, you need to prove yourself sometimes
that turns into being controlling.
So, you know, sometimes micromanaging shows up as a
result of feeling uncertain and I want to kind of pull back a
number one, just to normalize. But if you find that your head
space is is holding those kinds of thoughts, and you're having
those kinds of feelings. Number one, that is normal
because what often happens, you know, as a human, when we are in
a new situation. So it might be a new role that
might be in a new company. It might be with a new team
that's growing whenever you're in a new situation.
Your brain is trying to process and understand like how what to
do with that. And your brain is always going
to look for certainty because that feels like safety.
That feels like security and uncertainty can feel very
anxiety-provoking because that feels like Risk feels like
something might go wrong and be harmful or bad and you can even
add to that this other layer of if you have had, Experience in
the course of being a human at work where you really did have
this adverse reaction from people that you worked with
where you were really judged, or you were sort of undermined or
you had this. I mean we need to do a whole
other conversation on early traumatic work experiences, but
you might be in a context where all of that, you know, the fear
that your brain is remember. Being from another experience is
being activated in you all of that can come in to play not
because you're, you know, trying to be controlling.
But because when the brain perceives, like you're not in
control and it wants certainty, sometimes the way it shows up is
by trying to control things. So I wanted to share all of that
with you. Also like remember too, when
we're talking about managers, this goes always in a couple
directions. So this applies to you as a
human who has a role as a manager or leader in your
organization and team, but also consider your manager.
So if you have a manager and they seem to be exerting more
control through, being micromanage e, it's possible.
That the reason why Why is that it's coming through their own
sense of uncertainty and of needing, to prove and of needing
to try to kind of force an outcome.
And I mean that's a very interesting and different
conversation. You can have them with your
manager. So notice just for yourself, if
you have this sense of, I don't know what I'm doing and you feel
this feeling of anxiety and kind of freaking out, you know?
Just remember it's Okay, you're human.
The brain, does this. And you know what?
If you're actually not supposed to know in advance how it's all
supposed to work? What if what you're going
through is normal. And what might really help is to
remember, hey, you might actually have an inaccurate
sense of the timeline, you might be under estimating, how long it
takes to understand the landscape that you're working in
to understand, the existing systems to understand the
relationships and play. Maybe you're actually right on
track, maybe being If successful in managing people is not about
having all the information or knowing everything and maybe at
this stage, what success looks like is simply learning,
listening, being open and curious.
And maybe there are ways that you can measure how you're being
successful in each day, that will look different than how you
thought it would look. But it's still true and it still
works. And I mention this because I
think it's it's really common. As we are growing into higher
levels of responsibility and leadership in our organizations
that we have an idea of what it will be.
Like, you know, this thought of oh well if I was managing this
team, it would be like this and then we arrived there.
We get the job or we get the promotion or Get the head count
and things are actually different than how we imagine
them to be. And if we are really clinging to
how we thought it would be, that can interfere with our ability
to address. What is actually happening in
the moment and this might be, you know, the organization
changes direction or the personalities are different than
what you thought they would be. And you find that managing these
different personalities is is more challenging for you than
you thought or as in the case of the entire last 18 months, all
of a sudden, you know, your onboarding, this team and
everyone is remote and you're finding yourself challenge to
stretch in new ways to create connection, to understand what
people need to build, trust to create clarity. 84 people the
way that you do all of that might change.
It might be different depending on what is actually happening.
So what I find is that it helps to remember to give yourself
Grace To Remember, okay? This is new.
I haven't you know, managed a team of this size or I haven't
managed a team in this way or I haven't.
I haven't managed a team in this organization before to give
yourself the grace to understand that this is a new thing because
it's new, you're not supposed to have all of the answers all at
once. That would actually be kind of
weird if you think about it. I would be a little unusual and
to recast or to reframe your thoughts around this as okay in
each. Day and each moment I can arrive
and I can decide how do I need to be here for my team and if
you go back earlier into the podcast, I talk more about the
to be list which is one of my favorite tools, because we often
get caught up in, what do I need to do?
But if we're focused, instead on one step back, which is who do I
need to be the being? Well, You always inform the
doing and often will allow you to be more responsive to the
moment without having to create a very elaborate kind of
imaginary scenario of what you'll do which becomes
exhausting. And then when the world unfolds
in an unexpected way, it can become really difficult to
adapt. So I hope this, this, this
episode and these ideas are helpful to you, you know, being
a manager is not always an easy thing to do and working with
humans. And being a human is not always
an easy thing to do and it's easy to feel that sense of Self
Doubt. But what I want to offer is that
you are in this role for a reason and I want to say it
doesn't even matter if it's a good reason.
So, you know, you might, you might have just simply ended up
in that role for a whole host of reasons and it really doesn't
even matter why? But in this moment you are in a
position to do amazing work with people.
You are in a position to grow as a person and as a leader with
the resources and the situation that you have arrived in.
And that I think is something that we lose sight of, so I want
you to remember it. You have everything you need
right now. To be a fantastic people manager
within the organization, you're in and to grow and to develop
yourself as a person and as a leader, and to do that in your
own way. So if you're feeling anxious, if
you're thinking, oh my gosh, I don't know what I'm doing.
Take a breath. Give yourself a hug.
Give yourself some credit, remember, it's okay.
Most people don't actually know what they're doing.
Either that doesn't mean that we can't do great work together.
What if that's just all part of the process?
Thank you so much for listening. I hope you have a great rest of
your day and I'll see you next time.
Do you want personal confidential help with your
situation at work? I offer one-on-one coaching and
can help you overcome challenges reach your goals and become a
more effective leader to schedule a consult.
Go to my website, Kim nickel.com coaching and we'll schedule time
to talk about what's going on with you and how I can help talk
to you soon. Do you want personal
confidential help with your situation at work?
I offer one-on-one coaching and can help you overcome challenges
reach your goals and become a more effective leader to
schedule a consult. Go to my website, Kim nickel.com
coaching and we'll schedule time to talk about what's going on
with you and how I can help talk to you soon.