A person’s first promotion into a management position is usually both the most exciting and terrifying role of their career. Overnight everything changes and while exciting, there are many new expectations and responsibilities.

Knowing what to do in today’s increasingly complicated employee situations can be difficult for even seasoned managers, and certainly so for a new manager who has never had training. For a new manager, such problems are intensified. Not providing a new manager with training and tools is a lack of support on behalf of the company. While today’s managers are always being expected to do more with less, part of that “less” should not include forgoing training. Because knowledge is largely that which stands between a manager who becomes more confident and capable in their abilities and one who does the opposite.

In the absence of a new manager being knowledgeable and having a plan with which to begin their journey, it is almost guaranteed, there will be bruised relationships, people problems, and lowered productivity. Such situations are unnecessarily hard, on both the people being managed and the new manager themselves.

To a manager, the first management job is the hardest. There is a lot of pressure to get off to a good start. To worsen the anxiety, that first position usually includes managing others with whom the manager used to be co-workers, maybe even friends. Worst of all, rarely are new managers given any training. Mix in common obstacles such as that first problem employee or trying to manage complicated projects and it should come as no surprise that during their first year, so many new managers fail, develop bad habits, or even cause big problems. Really, how could they be expected to do otherwise? Given the circumstances, if they succeed, it is often due to factors of sheer luck such as inheriting exceptional employees who assist them during that first year. Bad experiences can shape a new manager in a negative way and create destructive coping patterns that persist and are loose on a number of undeserving employees throughout that manager’s career.

Some companies say they do not have a training program for new managers. Yet all companies do. In the absence of a training program, your new managers will learn the “hard way.” Learning the hard way is hard on everyone, and may lose the company both a valuable new manager and the valuable employees they “managed.”

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