The Most Common Mistakes To Avoid When You're The "New Boss"
Jan 08, 2014 21:23
Congratulations on finally making it to that nice corner office on the top floor! It should all be smooth sailing from now on right? Wrong.
We're all living in an era where 20 something year-olds get to start companies and call the shots. And the lack of experience means they're bound to make plenty of mistakes. While there's nothing wrong with stumbling every now and then, it would also be wise to learn from the mistakes of others on how to be a better boss.
To help you out, Ian McAllister (a longtime manager at Amazon) posted on Quora to break down the common mistakes that new managers tend to make. The biggest ones include:
We're all living in an era where 20 something year-olds get to start companies and call the shots. And the lack of experience means they're bound to make plenty of mistakes. While there's nothing wrong with stumbling every now and then, it would also be wise to learn from the mistakes of others on how to be a better boss.
To help you out, Ian McAllister (a longtime manager at Amazon) posted on Quora to break down the common mistakes that new managers tend to make. The biggest ones include:
Being slow to deal with performance issues - Smoke becomes fire. If you take note of performance issues early you can give gentle corrective feedback. If you're too slow to notice you have to give stronger feedback, and the performance issues may be harder to reverse.
Not documenting poor performance - Documenting poor performance via email helps employees understand the gravity of the situation ("This email summarizes the discussion we just had") and it is also helpful to have on hand if it comes time to terminate the employee.
Not documenting good performance - Documenting good performance via email, to the employee alone or to a wider audience, is a great way to recognize their contributions to the team and company. It's also a good habit to regularly document good performance of team members for your own purposes, so you can remember what you want to praise them for at annual review time.
For more on mistakes that most that new or inexperienced managers often make, read the full post hereNot documenting poor performance - Documenting poor performance via email helps employees understand the gravity of the situation ("This email summarizes the discussion we just had") and it is also helpful to have on hand if it comes time to terminate the employee.
Not documenting good performance - Documenting good performance via email, to the employee alone or to a wider audience, is a great way to recognize their contributions to the team and company. It's also a good habit to regularly document good performance of team members for your own purposes, so you can remember what you want to praise them for at annual review time.
