People & Leadership
You promoted your best performer. Now you have a struggling manager and a missing performer.
In a growing business, the first managers are usually the people who were best at the work: the fastest salesperson, the most careful technician, the one who never needed to be told. Then they are handed a team with no training, no change in authority and no idea that the job has changed. This session is for owners who are about to promote somebody, or who already have and are watching it wobble.
Explore this page6 sections
A manager's work is different work, and nobody announces that.
Being good at a task means doing it well yourself. Managing means getting it done through other people, which involves planning, explaining, checking, giving feedback and sometimes having unwelcome conversations. A person can be excellent at the first and never have practised any of the second.
When owners skip this, the same pattern appears. The new manager keeps doing the work personally, because that is what they know; the team feels micromanaged or abandoned; and the owner concludes that the promotion was a mistake. Often the person simply was not shown the job.
Developing a first-time manager
35 topics across 7 areas. Seven things an owner can do, none of which needs a training budget. 6 apply to almost any business; the rest only in a particular case.
Decide Whether Promotion Is the Right MoveNot everybody wants to manage, and not every good performer should.5
- Ask the person whether they want to manage others, and why
- Look at how they already help colleagues, share knowledge and handle disagreement
- Consider a senior specialist role as an alternative to management
- Be honest about the pay and status that come with each route
- Treat a first period as a trial, and say so openly
Name the Change in the JobSay out loud what is no longer their main work.5
- Which tasks they must now hand to others
- What they will be judged on: the team's result, not their own output
- How their time should shift from doing to planning, explaining and checking
- What they will find uncomfortable, such as managing former peers
- Who they can ask, and how often you will talk
Give Real Authority, Written DownResponsibility without authority creates a messenger, not a manager.5
- Decisions they can make without asking you
- Decisions they should make and tell you afterwards
- Decisions that still come to you first
- Budget, leave, task allocation and customer exceptions in particular
- A promise to back their decision in front of the team, and to discuss disagreement in private
Weekly One-to-OnesThirty minutes, same time, same shape.5
- What the team is working on and what is stuck
- One thing that went well and one that did not
- A people item: who needs help, feedback or recognition
- A skill to practise this week
- Notes kept short and agreed actions written down
Three First Skills to TeachStart with the ones that matter most.5
- Delegating with a clear outcome, deadline and check-in point
- Giving feedback soon after the event, with specifics
- Running a short weekly team meeting with decisions and owners recorded
- Saying no or not now to the team without losing their trust
- Asking questions before offering solutions
Managing Former PeersIf it appliesThe most awkward part of the first month.5
- Acknowledging the change openly with the team, led by the owner
- Having one honest conversation with each person, early
- Keeping friendships, but not favours
- Not apologising for the role, and not overplaying it
- Choosing one small early change rather than a sweeping one
Review at Thirty, Sixty and Ninety DaysShort conversations, decided in advance.5
- What the manager thinks is working and what is not
- What the team says, gathered by you in a few private conversations
- Whether the authority you gave is being used
- What help or training would make the next month better
- An honest decision at ninety days to continue, adjust or return to the earlier role
Questions to ask before promoting
- Do they want the role, or do they feel they should take it?
- Have they ever helped someone else improve?
- Can they explain their own work clearly to a newcomer?
- What will the business do about their current work?
- Can they handle being disliked for a decision?
Try this week
- Write down five decisions your manager can make alone, five to discuss with you, and five to bring to you first
- Fix a thirty-minute weekly slot with them and keep to it for a month
- Ask them which part of managing they find hardest, and listen before advising
- Pick one task they still do themselves that should move to the team
How the session runs
The session works through the seven parts with short examples, labelled as hypothetical where they are not real. Participants write a one-page authority note for a manager they have or are planning to appoint, and draft the agenda for a first one-to-one. Owners who are not yet ready to promote anybody can use the same exercises to prepare a future manager.
What your students leave with
- A clearer idea of what changes when somebody moves from doing to managing
- A way to judge readiness before promoting, and alternatives to promotion
- A written description of what the new manager decides and what still comes to the owner
- A simple structure for weekly one-to-ones between owner and manager
- The first coaching habits to teach: delegating, feedback and running a team meeting
- A thirty-day plan for supporting a manager they have recently appointed
Scheduled sessions
Nothing scheduled yet
Sessions are arranged with a college once a date is agreed. Ask us and we will find the right person for it.
A student rather than a college? See what is coming up, or ask your placement team to host this.
A promotion is the start of a new job, and the new manager needs to be shown it.
Tell us who your students are and what stage they are at. Sessions are free for participants.