Expectations of a New Boss
You’ve now been promoted to a manager, a leader, a boss…. now what? If you are being promoted in your department, you know you cannot continue with your same responsibilities. If you’re new to this “leadership” and “supervisor” style, here are 5 pillars to your new role that your employees are expecting from you.
You Are the People Leader.
Many new managers forget this key ingredient when they begin their new role—you are no longer in charge of the work, but in charge of the people doing the work. This mind shift may be difficult because what may have promoted you was your ability to perform the tasks exceptionally, but now you are responsible for people more than the task.
Personal Health & Development: Believe it or not, how someone is doing physically, emotionally, and mentally affects the productivity of the work being done. If one of your employees is going through a difficult situation, this has huge bearings on the accuracy of the work, the capacity of their workload, and how much they engage in problem-solving. Prioritizing times in your work week for employees to share what stressers they are facing with greatly impacts your perception of a leader.
Conflict Resolution: From personal to work issues, conflicts will arise with employees. Creating a clear understanding of how you will resolve conflicts is similar to keeping a spare tire in your car—hopefully you won’t need it, but you do. Clearing the air by stating, “Please share both sides, and I’ll come back with you tomorrow with a decision that I believe is best for the department. Is that fair?”
Culture: More than likely, your company has a set of values to live by. Simon Sinek describes culture as “Culture = Values + Behaviors”. As a leader, you are now responsible for carrying out the company values both personally, but also in cultivating this culture in your employees. Ask these questions: How will I share and celebrate our values? What ways am I enforcing behaviors that reinforce our values? How can I infuse our values into our everyday work?
Knowledge and Performance
As a leader, you are not only responsible for your people but will also be viewed as the "expert" in your field. Whether your expertise is in accounting, design, or operations, having deep knowledge of the areas you oversee is essential for leading your team effectively and understanding how teams function with one another.
Operations: How your team functions will make or break the productivity and camaraderie for each employee. Creating clear schedules for work, how the team interacts with each other, how meetings should be scheduled, and understanding what other team members do will create a smoother workflow amongst employees.
Procedures: Here is where you set the processes for how work is supposed to be carried out? Does everything need to be seen by you? How are decisions made? What time do employees need to show up for work? These procedures help to remove any vague expectations and assumptions in day-to-day operations.
Duties: As your team grows and you’re promoted into a new role, the delegating of tasks and responsibilities is vital to empowering employees. If you don’t already have one, start by creating a clear job description for each team member and review it regularly with job performance reviews. As new members join or new projects are added or removed, be sure to define the tasks and duties for each team member.
Representation
As the supervisor of the department, you are responsible for representing the individuals of this department. From the good, bad, and the ugly, as a good leader, you represent it all.
Information: As the leader, you are now the bridge of information. This means clarifying and communicating the right information between higher-ups to your department, but also sharing reports and updates for your department. The last thing you need is to give the wrong information to high-ups on the status or ability of your employees by not inquiring. Help to create understandable ways to share reports and updates with your employees to best represent the department.
Direction: As the leader, receive information about the organization, share new objectives and directions with your team members. Sometimes, as leaders, we believe that some information about potential changes is important to our employees, but I have found sharing possibilities of change is better than sudden and immediate decisions. Your team needs to hear movement within the organization.
Clarity: As a boss, you are now the funnel of information, tasks, and sometimes chaos. Your role now includes being clear to the projects coming your way. This goes both ways too. Bring clarity in your reports back to higher-ups and upper management by clarifying your team’s needs, status, and wins in an concise and understandable way.
Forecasting
While the term "higher-up" communicates more authority and governance, see this more as the one who can see further into the future. Be a leader who helps to share the direction and opportunities ahead. This includes new trends, business opportunities, and equipment for your department.
Vision & Goals: Where are you heading? What are you trying to accomplish? Have a clear idea of what your goals are to help set the tasks for today. Just like a GPS system, understanding where you are, seeing where you desire to go, and establishing the steps to take will help set the course for your team.
Planning: If you're an overachiever and love to get it done immediately, then you need a concrete plan to stop you from burnout. If you're a procrastinator and need the "last-minute thrill," you need a concrete plan to stop you from wasteful and sloppy work. Having a plan on how to accomplish the goals ahead will aid your employees in feeling accomplished and encourage momentum. This will also eliminate confusion about what to work on next and prevent work distractions that feel immediate.
Resource Management: As new projects and initiatives are taken on, do you have the manpower and resources to carry them out and continue? Do you have the financial budget to add new equipment or employees? Knowing what you need in the days ahead while knowing your team's energy will help ensure you can accomplish what is being asked of you with the right resources.
Special Tasks or Projects
This may be an area where leaders either thrive or completely neglect. There are projects and skills that only you can do that are more unique and tailored to your position, but have a great impact on the team and the organization.
Reports: Knowing the status of how things are progressing, how they have performed, and where they are being projected seems like something for forecasting, but has more to do with the department itself. Is your team getting better over time? Can they see progress in the goals set before them? How are they performing? These reports may be only for you, but they are a dashboard or instrument to help you know how well you are doing as a boss.
Gap Skill Set: In some cases, there may be special responsibilities that may not fit perfectly in your team, but could grow into a new position. This may start with the leader testing out a skill set or initiative in its infant state before creating new procedures and processes. This may also include new trainings to understand the new initiative.
Growth Development: How are you developing as a leader? How are you growing in your leadership skills? If this isn’t part of your organizational structure, this may be your responsibility to be proactive in developing principles to best work with your employees. This could include seeking conferences, online trainings, or even pursuing higher education. Show your team the importance of growing and learning.
Leadership isn’t just about managing… it’s about guiding, supporting, and growing with your team. Your team isn’t just expecting you to know the work, they’re expecting you to lead them through it with clarity, purpose, and intentionality. By changing your priority on people, then bring clarity and purpose to the systems, communication, vision, and personal growth, you’ll not only meet those expectations, you’ll inspire your team to rise with you.
