Why first-time managers fail

Why formal training (that you skipped) and informal coaching (that you never got) are critical for your success

The role of a team leader is critical in any organization. As a team leader you have enormous influence over what people in your team feel and think about their work. Your everyday behavior shapes their experience, affects their engagement at work, and ultimately, the outcomes the team achieves. Being a team leader is a very challenging role — especially for a first-time manager. 

I’ve been through this transition myself: stressed, miserable, sleep-deprived, feeling that I’m alone. I thought that I was well prepared for the role, and that I knew what I had to do at every step. Still, it was hard.

I’ve been through this transition myself: stressed, miserable, sleep-deprived, feeling that I’m alone. I thought that I was well prepared for the role, and that I knew what I had to do at every step. Still, it was hard.

Before being promoted to an engagement manager at McKinsey & Company, I’ve worked in dozens of teams as an analyst and associate. I’ve been through state of the art leadership program, schooled by amazing executive coaches in scenic Alpine off-sites. I received an Ivy League MBA. I co-founded a startup. Books, research pieces and blogs that I’ve read on this topic can make a large library. I always wanted to be a great manager for my teams: high outcomes, empathetic, uncovering the best in people. And yet, the transition was very bumpy.

Team management requires practicing a whole different skillset — what was making me a great individual contributor was not sufficient. Most of people are getting promotions for being a great IC. In addition, it is a shift from mostly “hard skills” to “soft skills”, from working stand-alone to working through the team.

Think if Michael Jordan, after winning all his titles and accolades, would try to become a coach. He alone can jump higher and score more than any basketball player in history, but for a coach the path to victory is completely different. It is to gather great players, ignite them so they want to win, make them play as a team, and train to perform at their best. 

A good manager is no different from a sports coach — a force multiplier to team’s efforts. The job is to serve your team to achieve better outcomes together.

A good manager is no different from a sports coach — a force multiplier to team’s efforts. The job is to serve your team to achieve better outcomes together. Finding the purpose, defining desirable outcomes, keeping the course, organizing the process, setting standards of excellence are among the instruments. It’s all about the “soft side” of teamwork — which is not so soft at all.

I failed miserably trying to lead my first team. As prescribed, I took charge of the direction and the process. I knew I had to help the team do their best work — same work I was doing as an IC. But with so many moving parts, high expectations, conflicting priorities, and just 24 hours in a day I was quickly overwhelmed. Team velocity and morale suffered, as a result. We were working long hours, but results were dismal.

Eventually, with practice I became more confident and effective — but it took many conversations with my leaders, mentors, and teams, who were very supportive. Those were critical conversations, which took a lot of courage to start.

It is quite likely that your experience is different.

Most managers are not trained for the role by their organizations (besides this is among the highest ROI investment they could possibly make).
So, you, a team leader, are on your own. Usually you have no one to talk to about your problems without some risks to your career.

Most managers are not properly trained for the role by their organizations (besides this is among the highest ROI investment they could possibly make). So, you, a team leader, are on your own. Usually you have no one to talk to about your problems without some risks to your career. Ego and status may be at play too. Likely, you may rant at home, or with friends, but not talking much about your problems at work. You are too busy and stressed to pick up a book, or a course on a subject. When you do, it’s difficult to finish a 300-page brick (to realize inside is just one idea), or figure out how to apply those 12 rules for life of a tech billionaire at your next team meeting. Blogs and articles are easier to digest, but they rarely lead to any actions. You read them, you feel better, you forget. The content alone won’t help much — similarly, a basketball coach cannot win the championship just by reading game rules. This discipline can be hardly taught, but it can be learned.

Without action those articles, interviews, and books on leadership and management are like snacking, when you’re trying to get into shape. They make you feel good, but don’t change behavior and results. What would help instead? An exercise program, a gym buddy, and a coach — a coherent, supportive system so you know where to start, what to do, how to track progress, boosting your commitment to take action, adding a conviction that results will follow. How can we build similar thing but to train leaders, instead of muscles?

Great managers are made in everyday battles — but only if they can reflect on their experience.

Great managers are made in everyday battles — but only if they can reflect on their experience. Even better is reflecting collectively on other people’s challenges, along with your own — in a group of peers. These solidify mental models acquired from practice and research, making you better prepared for what’s ahead.

Reflecting on yours and other people’s stories is the essence of an ancient way to train leaders. In the 15th century these were “Mirrors of Princes” — a collection of stories to discuss with princes so they can be trained to reign as kings. It is fundamentally the same thing as 20th century Harvard Business School Case method. High-performing organizations across the world adopted similar methods. Unlike a maths problem set from school, a case is useless without a discussion — stories does not have definitive answers. The lesson, the wisdom, the mental model has to be uncovered through reflecftion. From the same story two different people may dig two different lessons — their perspectives depend on their respective experience.

That’s why I’m writing this blog and share my stories (and ask my friends to share theirs) to start a community of emerging leaders who reflect collectively and share their struggles, experience, and lessons learned.

I invite your to the conversation.

Join the community. We will couple reflections on practice with insights from organizational psychology and management science. We will add experienced mentors and caring leadership coaches. I will curate the program of activities which will help you grow into high-outcomes and empathic leader.

I believe that leaders can benefit from a risk-free space where we can share our challenges, get advice, and have a meaningful discussion with like-minded peers, experienced executives, effective mentors and coaches. This curated community, where people are bounded by shared experience, can be a very powerful network of those growing together professionally. It will only get stronger with each new member, each new conversation.

Join the community waitlist here:

First 25 people who signed up will receive a free 1:1 with me — I’ll do my best to help with you current challenges

Every leader is getting through these issues of transition — it’s part of the growth. Together we can make it less painful and stressful. It won’t eliminate every bit of discomfort, but it will make you prepared. You will see you’re not alone.

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The takeaways:

• Team leaders are critical people in any company:

  • their behavior directly influences engagement and outcomes of their teams

  • they can make life of their team players exciting or miserable

  • they are #1 reason why people leave companies

  • Their core job is to organizing the team to achieve best outcomes: create conditions so they can perform at their best

• A good team leader acts as a leverage, a multiplier to team’s efforts — it’s a separate role (think a sport coach)

• Being a first-time managers usually feels miserable (as it did for me):

  • Acting as a good manager requires entirely different skill set vs IC (a coach, not a player); but people are promoted for being great team players

  • Team leaders are rarely trained; often they have no one to talk to about their problems without taking any career risks

  • For most of us this transition is difficult

• To excel in this role and ease the transformation it is necessary to 1. Practice and 2. Reflect on own experience (ideally in a circle of peers/mentors):

  • Formal training / content alone does not work — similarly, you cannot learn a new sport or get fit just by reading a book; I was trained rigorously and still failed (and so my colleagues)

  • Case method helps: reflecting on own and other’s experience

  • Peer coaching helps but only in in a risk-free, psychologically safe environment: an honest and open conversation with peers, mentors and teams

• I am starting a community and invite free-thinking emerging leaders aspiring to be great managers for their teams:

  • Meaningful connections with like-minded peers, mentors, experienced executives, effective coaches

  • Risk-free reflections on collective experience in peer groups

  • Mental-models and tools rooted in cutting-edge research in management science and organizational psychology

  • Structured program of activities boosting bias to action and conviction in results

  • First 25 people will receive a free 1:1 with me — I’ll do my best to help with you current challenges

    Join the community waitlist here:

Until the next week!

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