Insights That Can Help You As A First-Time Tech Manager – Part 2

Here are the next twelve ideas for you as a first-time manager.

Do they all make sense? Probably they all do. But that doesn’t mean they all worth acting on immediately. They will help you only when they resonate and make sense in your circumstances.

So here they are:

1. Think about how you want others to see you. Act accordingly.

2. Who you believe yourself to be affects how you behave. If you want to behave differently start thinking about yourself in a different way.

3. You are not flawless and you will make errors. Set expectations accordingly with your manager and your team. Then as you make errors, admit them. And learn from them.

4. Fear of being exposed or being vulnerable when admitting one’s errors are some of the biggest obstacles in professional development.

5. People don’t always know their true goals and values. Help them uncover and stick to these and they will follow you as a leader.

6. New context (role, company, location) requires change. You will greatly facilitate the change if you deliberately reflect — and do it regularly — on what this new context requires from you.

7. Change requires time. Even if you practice a lot and know the theory perfectly, you will still need some time to internalize the new modus operandi.

8. People are whole. They don’t leave part of themselves at home when they go to work. Meet a full person, not a role in your organization.

9. Sometimes people will not know about the positive motifs behind your actions. They will get your intentions wrong. Explain why you do the things you do.

10. And, vice versa, you may get someone else’s intentions wrong. Find a way to let them talk about their intentions explicitly.

11. Know who your stakeholders are. Ask them what they expect from you.

12. In a new role, it will be hard to assess how well you are doing. Doing managerial tasks is not as straight-forward as doing tech tasks. Seek a lot of feedback from different people to understand how well you are doing.

Which of these ideas are you already using? And which of them would you like to put into practice? Do you need help in making any of them work for you? Write me at alex@alexmarynov.com and I’ll help you plan how to implement any of these ideas.

P.S. The beginning of the series is here.