9 REASONS WHY NEW MANAGERS FAIL WITHIN THE FIRST 2 YEARS

Posted on July 25, 2023 by Babita Sharma, One of Thousands of Leadership Coaches on Noomii.

9 REASONS WHY NEW MANAGERS FAIL WITHIN THE FIRST 2 YEARS

“Transition failures happen because new leaders either misunderstand the essential demands of the situation or lack the skill and flexibility to adapt to them.”

In research conducted by CEB Global, it was found that 60 % of New managers fail within the first 24 months of their new position.

That means the success rate is only 40 %.

That’s an alarming number!

According to Steve Smith, author of -’ Managing For Success: Practical Advice For Managers,’ the main reason for the failure of managers is they were never trained appropriately to manage.

All of this has a long-lasting impact on the workplace of the organization.
The consequences reverberate throughout the organization.

Managers have a great influence and impact on their team members and are key players in nurturing the organization’s culture.

While they are struggling to keep up with their performance and the demands of the new role, their direct reports are found to perform 15 % worse on average, than those who report to a high-performing manager.

According to the Gartner consulting firm, they are 20% more likely to leave the organization to be disengaged.

No wonder then that people leave bad managers and not bad companies.

To avoid this heartbreaking spiral, they can avoid the pitfall only if they know the potential reasons for failure.

Ulrik Juul Christensen wrote in a special edition of Harvard Business Review (Winter 2019) about a concept called “unconscious incompetence”.

This is the official term for “we don’t know what we don’t know”.

By bringing this idea to the L&D and training world, knowledge gaps can be addressed with the purpose of growth rather than criticism.

In this post, I have enlisted 9 such reasons which cause New Managers to fail within the first couple of years.

Read the post to gain insights on New manager failure so that you can avoid making such mistakes.

1. LACK OF CONTEXT FOR THE ROLE

Most new Managers are ambiguous about their role. They are promoted because of their contribution and performance as recognition and reward for their success but they are hardly given any clarity about what is expected of them.
Even though they have the technical expertise to do their job well, they lack the skills to manage and develop a team.
For example, it takes an entirely different skill set to be an effective Accounts manager than it does to be an excellent accounts person.
They’re not truly aware of what a management role entails and are always in a dilemma -on one hand, they want to be successful but on the other, they’re not quite sure how to navigate through.
As time goes by they find themselves missing the work that was the reason they rose to the star level.
This dilemma is real and common and the only way to get rid of this is to get clear with their job key deliverables and know their boss’s expectations.
They must be helped by their seniors and on a personal level the new manager too must work hard to establish the context for the role.

2. THEY DON’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN MANAGING AND LEADING
One Big reason why very few Managers are successful is that they know the difference between Management and Leadership.
Management is getting the basic processes of the job done, such as monthly reports, budgets, and accounting.
. Management entails Planning, budgeting, organizing, coordinating, tracking time, managing expenses, keeping projects on track, and day-to-day business on point and task, etc.
Leadership, on the other hand, requires Vision, inspiring, motivating, and engaging a team, driving change, taking risks, being accountable, and driving the organization forward to make it more successful.
To effectively lead people a manager needs to be confident, communicate with purpose, delegate effectively, establish clear goals, and hold them accountable to meet desired outcomes.
To help the team perform at its highest potential they need to coach and motivate them, resolve conflicts, and do everything possible to keep the team and the organization progressing.
Leadership is the ability to take a team and get their best work moving toward a common goal of profitability. Most new managers get management training, but few get any type of leadership support, which sets you on a certain course of failure.
Very Few companies today have ongoing management training, especially for lower-level management positions.
You are promoted, given some coaching by the person leaving the job (sometimes), and you are on your own to figure out how to get your new job done.

3 . ABSENCE OF THE RIGHT KIND OF SUPPORT

The right kind of support is absent for New Managers in most organizations.
As I have discussed in the above points, New Managers lack role context and are ambiguous about their role, they do not possess leadership qualities and cannot differentiate between managerial and leadership skills.
They need a strong mentor to guide them and walk them through the process.
The mentors can be their bosses or any senior consultant who can give them role clarity, help them develop leadership skills, identify the skills and knowledge gaps needed to do the job well, and assist them with the right kind of training programs.
They can provide them with coaching and mentoring to make the best use of their potential so that they are more productive.
The mentors also provide them with feedback so that they do not doubt themselves and feel that someone is taking an interest to guide their wrongs and rights.
This can go a long way in improving their outlook and attitude towards their role and they will be more motivated to do their best.

4. NOT BUILDING THE RIGHT CONNECTIONS

Once they are Promoted, managers seldom realize that they have to build a strong network of connections around them.
They need to handle old peers, and this is where they go wrong. They try to be one of their peers for fear of losing out on old friends or being criticized, judged, etc.
They try to spend too much time with them, divulge some secrets of the management which are not to be shared with them or play favorites with them.
This costs them heavily in many ways, some of which are as follows –
They become unpopular with the rest of the team for playing favorites. They don’t understand the implications of sharing secrets of management with old friends which can cost them their job and they lose trust with the authorities.
By spending too much time with their old friends, they are not spending time building relationships with new and younger team members. They are not developing their leadership abilities to lead the team.
This poses a challenge for them to hold their friends accountable or correct inefficient behavior.
One thing to keep in mind is that teams look up to their leaders and respond to strong leadership and they follow someone who can make tough decisions
guide them, take charge of them, give them direction, hold them accountable, and help them become successful professionally and financially by opening new opportunities for them and helping them become better than they are today.
Remember good employees do not follow equals, they follow someone more successful and inspiring. Therefore they must separate themselves from the team they are leading.

Most importantly, and even at the lower levels, leaders create a vision of what we are doing, what needs to get done, and why it is important to this company.
Leaders help us see beyond ourselves but if you spend your time trying to stay hidden as a leader who still wants to be one of the pack, you fail.
One thing that can help you, in the long run, is to build a strong support system for some seniors who are more experienced and experts in their field and peers who are facing similar challenges so that you can seek new perspectives and generate better solutions with their help.

5. MAKING TOO MANY CHANGES TOO SOON

In a bid to prove their worth most New Managers start implementing new ideas to bring about change as soon as they are in charge.
Little do they realize that many managers did the same thing before them and failed miserably.
They start making random, haphazard, unexpected changes without any apparent reason.
More than creating agility it throws employees off balance.
Under such managers, employees get used to their comfortable way of doing things.
They get used to the mood of the boss and expect no consequences when deadlines are missed—because while making random changes you don’t have any deadlines for anything.
Such managers become blind to things like the team is not ready for the change, and the resources need to be adjusted to accommodate the change.
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This can be prevented if they wait for a few months and observe the work conditions, the organization’s culture, systems and processes, personnel dynamics, and operational well-being.
Before laying out a vision that is drastically different from the present one, they must ask more questions to their boss and employees, listen to the responses, and make notes of them. Then they must use these responses to bring about a change one change at a time.
You must keep in mind that a change must be communicated with a rational reason behind it. This will help you build trust with your employees. You must also clarify the starting and ending date with employees whose jobs are affected by the change.
6. DOING IT ALL ALONE.

There are some hidden fears and beliefs which prevent new managers from asking for help or delegating tasks to their team.
Some are like –
They have to do it all alone, they have to move faster, fear losing their position.
They are unconfident about holding people accountable. They don’t want to look weak, they lack trust in an employee’s abilities, or think that teaching others will be a waste of time.
Instead, if they do it themselves, they will be able to do it much faster.
So they try to do all the work by themselves.
As a result of this, they easily get overstressed and lose their drive due to overwhelm and pressure.
Sometimes in a bid to be perfect, New Managers often take to micromanaging which costs them their time and they are never able to develop their team members.
In some other cases, they do not know whom to ask for support or look to for help for insight and assistance on specific tasks, processes, or situations.
They can connect with Senior employees who are experts on such things to help them, by organizing some coffee breaks and sharing some ideas and insights can be very helpful.
But the truth is that a manager doesn’t have to do every bit of work within the job process.
It may seem tempting to do things by yourself as the quickest way to get things done, but they fail to recognize that the opportunity presents itself for a training moment.
Choosing to let them do the work themselves instead of having to appear efficient by moving faster will pay rich dividends in the long run.
Leaders get things done because they hold their team accountable for the work.
A new manager has goals to meet for the financial success of the company and work to get done and he or she is now held accountable to someone further up the chain.
But this is the breaking point for many new managers.
They cannot, or will not, hold anyone accountable so they try to do all the work themselves.
He or she assigns work, it does not get done, yet the manager is being held accountable so he or she tries to get everything done in the name of the team and to protect their friends… and this always results in failure.
You simply cannot do the work of a team yourself for any length of time without breaking.
The bigger issue is your supervisor will notice you cannot assign tasks and hold people accountable so while you nobly try to carry the load for everyone your boss now understands you are not a manager and never will be one, because you cannot tap the power of the people you manage
Failing in a job is not the end of your career, but a stumble could set you back for years.
New managers fail because of one big issue; they do not let go of who they were and embrace who they can be as they rise in any company.
You also can get in trouble because you do not see your current promotion as a step forward in a long career.
Careers are built one job at a time, and you should view each chance to rise, manage and lead as a way to create a long and financially successful work life.
Therefore stop Micromanaging and let people do the work for themselves.
Set aside time to build a highly engaged team.
7.NOT SETTING CLEAR EXPECTATIONS AND GOALS WITH THEIR TEAM

Setting clear expectations around goals both behavioral and performance, time, communication and culture is crucial for organizational success and building a well-engaged and high-performing team.
Managers who do not set clear goals and expectations with employees will not be able to achieve companies goals and objectives and hold their employees accountable.
Undefined goals and expectations are one of the main causes of stress, tension, and conflict in the workplace.
Sharing job descriptions is not enough.
As a Manager, you must communicate a detailed understanding of how each person’s role is related to and affects the roles of other employees and the organization on the whole.
Employees also need to be informed . verbally as well as in writing, that as circumstances change the expectations will also change.
This will minimize the chances of confusion and chaos and increase the likelihood of employees meeting their performance goals, demonstrating professional behavior, and bringing more enthusiasm and energy to work.
After all, everyone likes to know that they are doing things right.No one likes ambiguity and lack of clear direction
To have a long-lasting effect on productivity and profitability it is imperative to set clear expectations and employee responsibilities while onboarding new employees or briefing the existing ones.
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8. FAIL TO BUILD TRUST WITH THE TEAM

Managers are the cogs in the wheel that holds an organization together because all of your employees report to them.
The majority of communication in the workplace is funneled through them.
So they are responsible for organizations’ and employees’ success.
But there are some shortcomings due to which they fail to build trust with the team. Some of them are enlisted below :
1.Fail to walk the talk: You fail to build trust when you fail to walk the talk .
Do what you say and say what you do.

2. Failing to be clear and transparent –
If you fail to communicate how you set the initial goal ,
Or what is interfering with the accomplishment of the initial goal ,
Or how and why your projection has changed,
And what employees can expect going forward,
You will lose trust with your team .

3 Making random, sudden and unexpected changes for no apparent reason.
This keeps employees off-balance.
Any change must be communicated with a rational reason behind the change made clear.
The key to building trust with employees and coworkers is honest communication.
Maintain trust by doing what you say.
Adopt a management style that empowers and enables employees.

9. THEY DON’T EFFECTIVELY MANAGE CHANGE

In the workplace, things can — and always do — change.
Most managers are unable to embrace it and so they are unable to find ways to work through it and come out on the other side stronger than before.
It may be because they fail to see the growth that change will bring or love sitting in their comfort zone.
As a result, their organization suffers, they fail to inspire their teams and build a strong confident, resilient and focused team.
As a New manager, you must take the initiative to know how the change will impact your team, your organization, and yourself as an individual.
Then you must share this information with your team and ask for help from your team members so that they become initiators in the change .

I love to share a quote I came across recently-

‘’Change is Disturbing When It is Done to Us, Exhilarating When It Is Done by Us.”

Rosabeth Moss Kanter

In this way, you will be able to motivate, guide and coach your teams through any change successfully.

CONCLUSION

It’s “sink or swim” for too many new managers.

Most companies hire new managers and then leave them to run the show.

New Managers are left to figure out things for themselves and end up stressed and overwhelmed.

But I believe that you will not find a good onboarding system in every company.

So what do you do then?

You may hop from company to company, and your job may change, but if you carry your Values, attitude, skills, and knowledge with you you can shine anywhere.

If you let the learning path happen by itself, it will take longer time and you will make more mistakes before you learn and adapt to the new role.

However, if the development path is clear, the learning is purposeful, adaptation is faster, and the job transition is much smoother.

Make a career development plan and include skills and techniques you need to help you grow and adapt in your role as a manager.

Also, identify your top values, and shape your beliefs and attitude where it needs to be adjusted to help you transition smoothly into your new role.

Seek the help of a mentor and coach and take regular feedback from employees, mentors, and co-workers to stay motivated.

The Centre For Creative Leadership suggests four skills every new manager must master, starting with self-awareness.

The other three, which stem from self-awareness, are communication, influence, and agility.

Improving self-awareness is a personal aim.
By engaging in a cycle of self-reflection and candid feedback from others, you can understand how you are seen and the extent to which that aligns with how you wish to be seen.

Integrating ongoing feedback into management development enhances self-awareness and guides your development actions.

I hope you have found the post helpful. What is your biggest takeaway from this post? Share your thoughts below.

Babita Sharma
Leadership Coach