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In management there is one rule: if you become a manager without ever having led anybody before, you will go through a period in which you make a lot of mistakes, at least at the beginning. This is completely natural; without experience, it is inevitable. But if you manage to learn from these mistakes, it is not a tragedy but a natural process every new manager must undergo. In order to make things slightly easier for you, we offer this list of five very common mistakes new managers make.
As The Muse states, many new managers subconsciously believe only they themselves are able to do things to the required level of quality. They are then reluctant to delegate tasks and become increasingly overwhelmed. An ability and willingness to delegate work is one of the most important and also most difficult tasks of any new manager.
Managerial newbies often feel they need to have everything that is going on in the team under control. Thus they sometimes focus on details and insist pedantically on pointless rules rather than concentrate on overall results and giving employees sufficient breathing space.
New managers, in an effort to appear sufficiently professional, often read numerous books on management, follow expert advice, and ultimately try to manage in a style that for them is not natural. Every manager needs to find their own style that corresponds to their personality instead of trying to copy other people.
In an effort to get along with their subordinates (as indeed they should), inexperienced team leaders sometimes end up promising things they cannot deliver. New managers should avoid this.
The last mistake to mention here is a lack of decisiveness. Some new managers do not feel sufficiently self-confident to make quick, confident decisions, which sometimes ends up having a negative impact on the results or functioning of the team.
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