Welcome to the new manager podcast.
I'm your host, Kim nickel. Over 800 people have taken my
workshop for new managers over the last couple of years and
this podcast is a way for me to share what I have been learning
as I have been teaching and working with people about
becoming new managers and also this is for my students who take
my workshop and they want to remember what was that Insight
or? Oh how You explain this one
thing again or I want to remember how to bring this topic
into this different situation. And so this is for you.
I want to talk about the two key skills that you need.
As you move into leadership as you become a manager and this is
true whether you currently have direct reports whether you
manage by influence. You might be an office manager,
you might be a project manager. You might be a product manager
or an executive assistant, or anyone who does not have someone
directly reporting to you. But as a practical matter, you
have to manage people in order to do your job and also for
people who don't manage people yet.
But you know, that's the next step for you and you're wanting
to begin to learn the skills and develop your mindset so that
you're ready for when you That to that news new place.
It comes down to these two simple things.
Number one self awareness. Number two, communication.
Now these are two topics that you could study for the rest of
your life and never be done. Just to give you some
perspective, okay? Self-awareness is something that
you don't just, learn it in a weekend, you don't just, you
know, learn it from a single class or from A single book.
It really is this ongoing relationship with you and your
life and the way that you experience and perceive it the
way that you understand who you are, how you are, how you show
up in the world, what your preferences and tendencies are,
and communication is about how you relate with others.
How do you listen to others? How are you present with others?
How do you convey this? In or information or a desire,
or a request or a correction, how do you have difficult
conversations? How do you give feedback?
How do you take feedback? It's this really diverse realm
of communication and again, it's not a thing that you learn in a
day or a weekend. It really is a practice that you
cultivate and use over the course of your life.
Now, the really good news is that You already have a deep
practice in self-awareness and communication although it might
exist a little bit below the level of your conscious mind.
And by that, I mean you are already living your life and
successfully. I might add you have
successfully lived to be a functioning adult in the world
with other people and that requires bye.
Fault. A measure of self-awareness and
a measure of communication. But what begins to change as you
step into a manager role and you begin to ask yourself, how do I
manage people effectively? What is the skill of how to do
that? You realize, okay, now I need to
deepen my self awareness. Oh, and now I need to expand and
refine. And my communication skills
because it just requires a different level of application
in the world. Now when you think about
self-awareness, what's really cool is that as you become more
aware for yourself? For example, am I'm more of an
introverted person or an extroverted person.
Am I more of a maker creative type?
Or am I more of a Visionary? Am I more of an Relations
person. Do I like to be more systems
thinking or do I like to really immerse myself in the craft of
the creative nature of a thing? The more that you begin to
understand about yourself, how you tend to operate, what you
tend to prefer, how you like to be treated, what feels like
respect to you. Personally, even as simple as
are you a morning person or Or are you more energized in the
evening as you become more aware of how you are?
You begin to understand. Oh, not all people are like me,
it seems obvious but I tell you there's so much friction and so
much frustration that arises because we have this in like
this very internal expectation that other people are like me or
they should be like me and it's just this natural.
Preference for ourselves. It's kind of baked into us as
humans, that's not a problem. But when you begin to realize,
oh I have these preferences, I have these priorities, I have
these values, I have these Tendencies and other people have
their own, and they might differ from me, and that's okay.
Because if you understand that other people very, and might
differ that, Then can shape the way you communicate and lead and
manage them if you begin to understand.
Oh, my team has a very different need than I do.
In terms of when they like to do their most creative work or my
person that reports to me, they really prefer communication
through this channel rather than that channel.
They'd rather have me message. Through slack, instead of an
email or they would rather me pick up the phone or they would
rather me schedule a call as you begin to understand.
Other people have different preferences.
Other people are different than me and that's okay.
Then you start to get curious about, okay, given that this is.
So how can I work with these people?
As they are and you stop taking it.
Personally, when people are different Then how you are
because this is another thing to as a human.
We take things really personally and we assume that if things
aren't going our way, it's because there's something wrong
with the other person or that they're doing something
intentionally to frustrate, or disappoint us that that's a
very, very common experience that we have.
So self-awareness learn and become more aware of how you
are. Because that, then allows you to
Stan, do others are different, and that's okay.
And when I see that clearly, then I can lead and manage and
communicate much more effectively.
This, by the way, is also why it's so popular in the business
world to use tools like mbti, right?
Like the Myers-Briggs type indicator or the disk method or
any of the other personality or type tools there Are all tools
to try to help us understand how our our Tendencies.
What is the the way that we most like to operate and work and
understanding that others very and are different.
And then we can begin to ask better questions about how can
we all work together in a way that really serves our strengths
and doesn't put us into a situation where there's a lot of
conflict or people are not using their talent and skill and
energy. G in the most effective way,
that's the self-awareness part. The communication part is.
So is so important. It is the fastest way to build
trust and the fastest way to break it relationships often
break because of messy communication of poor
communication of an inability or unwillingness.
Willingness to listen rather than to Simply a search or to
demand. And so communication becomes
this thing that as you continue to learn and use different
skills around communication that helps you to build more
effective relationships. That helps boost morale.
That helps people feel respected appreciated supported so that
they're more fully engaged. Present at work and it makes
your life easier to as this podcast unfolds.
I'll talk more about each of these different dimensions,
communication and self-awareness, but just for
right now, I want you to know that these are the two main
categories that all of the other skills really fall into.
And if you look at all of the books out there and all of the
trainings and all of the different ways that you can,
Grow as a manager. And as a leader, most of the
time, they'll fall under one of those two categories.
How can you understand yourself better?
How can you understand your people better?
So that you relate with them in the most useful way.
And also, how can you communicate effectively?
How can you have a difficult conversation?
How can you listen better? How can you speak to upper
management in the most effective?
Way, how do you on board in the most effective way?
How do you convey the expectations and the goals and
the kpis? And then how do you deal and
communicate with people when they're falling short of where
they need to be or where you want them to be.
All of that comes under these two, simple things communication
and self-awareness. So that is what I wanted to
share with you today. I'm really glad that you got to
listen to this and come back next time as we keep exploring.
What is it mean to be a great manager?
And whether that means that you are new to managing people, or
you just want a new perspective and some new ideas.
All of that is what I'm here for and I'm glad you're here to buy.
If you know, it's time to level Laughs.
But you feel your perfectionism Self Doubt and uncertainty
getting in the way then come work with me.
We'll have six months of one-on-one coaching and it all
starts by going to my website. Kim nickel.com coaching and
joining my waitlist talk to you soon.