Almost 15 years ago, I stepped into the role of a manager. My first time being a first time manager – it was both exciting and scary. It was like entering a new world in my career. I had more responsibilities, and everything felt uncertain. Very uncertain. Suddenly even my wardrobe was supposed to be powerful!

In this edition, I am sharing my personal journey as a first-time manager, delving into the emotions, struggles, and pivotal lessons learned at that time.

The first few months

My first stint into the role of a manager while I had 4-5 years experience as a HRBP under my belt. I was part of the Corporate HR team and was given a team of Freshers (right from campus) to train and lead. My team was responsible for managing the HR life cycle (Hire to Retire) for Corporate Team + one smaller business unit. These new team members were completely new and my role was to train them and also get the deliverables achieved.

Till now I used to be a one person in a does-it-all role. So my excitement at having a team to lead was sky high. Remember those early days, when we thought “Ab to kaam nahin karna padega” because now I was a manager. That’s what we used to think about our managers (at least I did, till I became one) 🙂

The initial excitement faded very soon.

The three of them kept coming to me every 15 minutes or so, asking for some clarification or other. And I kept thinking – I have told you once before, why do you keep coming to me. I started comparing how efficient I was in their role. I was quite irritated. To top it off, my manager kept checking in on their progress with me. In my second or third 1-o-1 with my manager, when he asked about them I said, “they have only increased my work, the time that I used to take to complete was far less than answering their questions.”  My manager laughed, and said, “You need to start delegating and reviewing and not sitting with them to do it. Have a daily call to assign and take reports of the tasks. And limit access to yourself. Then can speak to you at the beginning and end of the day, and push them to find their own ways.”

I started to conduct “daily stand ups.” That’s what we used to call them. It made my life easier since there was a defined time in which we were meeting and they had to come prepared to ask their questions / doubts whatever they wanted to ask. I now started to like this new territory as there was time for me to think ahead since the immediate tasks were taken over by them. I started to think about how I can improve the processes. I had more people to share and have some lighter chat time.

This new arrangement added more responsibilities on me. I started to ask for more from my manager and he was happy to delegate things to me since he became confident of me managing the current responsibilities well. This added to my personal and professional growth. As a manager, I started to feel very happy with how I was handling this phase.

The first difficult conversation

Very soon, I had a challenge when one of my team members complained about the behavior of the other.That she was rude to them and did not cooperate.

Now the other two were from the same college and probably had ganged up. I tried to listen to both but thought since the other two are from the same college, it wasn’t going to be much help.

I was not able to understand what was happening and I felt that going to my manager for such a small thing might make him think negatively about me. So I tried to talk to all three separately to understand and then got them all together to clear the air and get an agreement on the way ahead.

This got sorted and they started to deliver as required and agreed. At the end of the year, from one of the two team members  I got this feedback that they felt that I am biased towards the third one.

Wow, that just hit me out of the blue!!

I then brought this up with my manager, and he helped me realize that – I did the first thing right by talking to all three, getting an agreement on the way ahead. But I didn’t connect back again with each one of them.

Maybe a follow up check in would have helped all three more.

The first time feeling overwhelmed

In another instance, one of things that I learnt while leading the team was managing time. This was the first time the concept of time management made sense to me.

I remember one of the days I was working late in the office and my manager checked in to see what was happening. When I mentioned my to-do list, he was aghast. He said, “I didn’t know that you were so overworked.” He told me to go home, and that we will speak the next day.

The next day he asked me to share how I made a note of work that needed to be done. I showed him my diary (those days there was no “one note” etc). He asked “how do you decide what needs to be closed today?” And I said in the sequence as it comes, and also depending upon who’s going to ask me for an update when.

He asked me to create a list of activities that were pending. And then to write the dates by which they needed to be closed. Further on he said, “If you don’t know the dates, then first check with the stakeholders when they are looping you in. Align your priorities for the week and accordingly assign dates and priorities to your team for the month/week whatever way it makes sense to you.”

He told me the big stones, small stones and sand story and asked me to read through the four quadrants of time management.

(Yes!! I was lucky to get this person as my manager!)

What happened when my managerial role involved multiple teams

Further in my career when I handled larger teams, performance feedback always remained one of the things that I learnt through a lot of practice. I remember when I was to give the annual performance feedback to my team members, I think I was more nervous than my team members.

There was a format that we had created (being in HR) but when the time came to fill it, I was really struggling to fill in instances. I remember looking at all my emails and trying to remember what I can give feedback on. That first time was really hard but later as years passed I started to keep a diary/excel sheet with incidents captured for each of my team members as and when that happened and what happened and how I felt.. These were major milestones that I started to keep note of and as I became aware of and attended a few training sessions on Feedback, I realized that recency effects can really spoil the entire feedback intent.

So maintaining a critical incidents register is really useful when you look back at the end of the year. While we now have moved to quarterly or six monthly reviews, this dairy is very useful.

I also maintain it for myself so that I do not miss on my own milestones of the year.

Each team member is different hence the way to manage or deal with each one of them is different.

One of the incidents that really shaped me as a Manager was exposure to the communication styles of people. It simply meant that each individual is different and the way to assign, review and manage them had to be different. For instance, I was leading a team of almost 18 people (direct and indirect reportees), and I had 5  direct reportees at that time. Three among them were handling larger portfolios and were seasoned professionals. Initially I had my struggles with them and again I had the privilege of good mentors as my bosses. He introduced me to the concept of communication styles and how someone may just need a broader framework, output clarity and then things will be delivered. Another may need close monitoring, inputs and review to progress. And that they will have to be acknowledged differently for their work. One may be happy in public recognition and another may find it flattery. So I read about it, practiced and implemented it.

I found it so useful that I got it created as a learning module and our team started to train all our managers internally on it.

Be it feedback or communication or conversations – everything that I learned as a manager has come to me through the way of practice.

I was exposed to formal training on “Team Management” much later in my career. Had I been given exposure to formal skill building and managing this transition in my brain, it could have saved a lot of time running around, discussing with different people to find ways out and would have made me more productive quickly. Though running around and learning by failing has its own charm. But in today’s competitive world, we all may not have the luxury of failing and running back again- and it’s best to learn from others’ experiences.

My life today looks very different.

As I reminisce about all these experiences, I also teach a first time manager program, that helps a new manager

• learn new skills
• practice and apply
• discuss them with fellow partners and
• get coached to cross over this important phase of their life.

My program is based on the theory of change – meaning to bring any change it starts from your mind. We need to reprogram our brain first, unfreeze a few learnings and experiences, then gain new skills. Then practice them for a period by making mistakes and then correcting them for deeper learning. This whole space sometimes can overwhelm you so talking to a coach can help you with a judgment free space to talk, discuss and ultimately help you move forward.