Congratulations! You finally filled that managerial position! And with someone from within the organization! An exemplary contributor and a model for others of how employees can rise within the company. But will they be a shining example or a cautionary tale? Their success depends on your ability to support them through this transition.
On the surface, a promotion sounds great. Being promoted to a managerial position is a sign of trust, respect and excellent performance and a reason employees stay at your company. However, too many promoted managers are left to learn the hard way. A managerial position requires an entirely different skill set in the move from individual performance to managing a team. Rarely do companies take the time to do robust professional development to support new managers. Although newly promoted managers may understand how they did their previous job, they need to learn how to best lead the people now doing his/her/their previous job. They will need some combination of mentoring, coaching on-boarding or professional development to be successful. Without on-going support, managers will inevitably over rely on their cognitive biases to survive in their new situations. Without mitigation, these cognitive biases will likely lead to less productivity, worse decisions and frustration among employees.
What biases are most likely to show up for new managers?
The first and most prevalent is Egocentric Bias, or the overvaluing of one’s own method for getting a job done. For new managers, Egocentric Bias makes sense – a recently promoted manager got the promotion based on their success in how they do things, after all. It’s natural to rely on what worked in the past, whether consciously or unconsciously. In some ways, it’s really all they know. However, it disregards the reality that people are different and have different needs. Part of being an effective manager is in meeting people where they are. It is important to consider people’s unique skill sets, their strengths and their challenges. It’s equally important to take into account people’s identities. Even if people have the same strengths and challenges, their differing identities along gender, race, culture, age or ability will change how they are able to navigate the workplace. As a white middle-aged cis male, my best advice might not work or might even backfire for people holding different identities.
Helping new managers to examine their assumptions and to question their own process is a first step. From there, managers can learn to listen rather than tell, and to learn about who they supervise and what they need to succeed. Excelling as an inclusive leader requires a multiplicity of methods, instead of a single right way. Breaking out of this mindset requires training and time, which is rarely allowed when someone begins a new position and is often expected to jump right in. Professional development that might happen for hires from outside the organization doesn’t always happen for those who are promoted from within. For some reason, this is consistently overlooked.
Another insidious cognitive bias prevalent for new managers is Like Me Bias. Like Me is exactly as it sounds, the bias to gravitate towards people who are like us. In this case, it’s not only typical identity markers (gender, race, culture, age, abilities) but a wide range of intersections and dimensions of diversity. As a proud Michigan Wolverine who leads with “Go Blue!” to anyone wearing Michigan gear, I have an automatic liking toward any candidate who went to the University of Michigan. This of course is ridiculous. The 35,000 people at Michigan each year do not share anything in common with me other than where we paid tuition, yet my brain lights up when I see it on a resume. Universities, past employers, common hobbies – all of these can influence managers in hiring and in promotions. It can also influence less formal work structures such as who to ask for feedback on a new idea or to join a new project. When new managers learn from the beginning about Like Me Bias and ways to mitigate against it, they can get off to a strong start instead of reinforcing outdated office norms.
How do I setup a new manager for immediate success?
Promoting someone to a new manager without sufficient training is a set-up for everyone involved but it doesn’t have to be. Some changes within the processes of organizations could account for this shift in responsibilities. Here are some strategies to consider.
- Create supportive checkpoints for new managers through coaching, professional development or training. In many cases, an outside organization can be the best support for this new role because of their external lens.
- Adjust a manager’s workload for their new role. If a manager is responsible for an entire team and the team’s output, this represents an entirely different set of metrics from their previous position.
- Set new managers up for success through on-going support. People are often expected to sink or swim because that was the experience of the previous manager. That cycle can be broken with adequate support throughout the first year as a manager. Be sure to include specific strategies to examine and mitigate bias.
- Form a new manager ERG for employees to share experiences that they can’t share in other contexts.
- As a larger issue, companies should consider alternate paths to advancement that do not include managing people or in shifting skill sets for employees. Promoting to a manager is a typical path of going up the corporate ladder but it does not have to be the only one. Consider how employees can advance without having to move into a job they are less good at, while simultaneously taking away their current and future potential with the skills they have. How can your company provide financial and other rewards to exemplary employees? What are new metrics they could be measured by? What are ways to advance while staying within their expertise?
Thoughtful consideration and implementation of these ideas pays off in dramatic ways – keeping talent, satisfied employees, high functioning teams and becoming a company where people want to stay instead of leaving for a better opportunity. Otherwise, you could end up in a nearly continuous hiring cycle for managers as they burn out or never adjust to the different demands of managing a team. At the Percipio Company, we can work alongside you to help chart a course for managerial success, mentoring and coaching those in new roles and developing processes that fit your organization so that newly promoted employees can be beacons of what’s possible.
Percipio Company is led by Matthew Cahill. His deep expertise in cognitive, social, and workplace biases is rooted in the belief that if you have a brain, you have bias®. He works with executives to reduce mental mistakes, strengthen workplace relationships & disrupt existing bias within current HR processes, meeting protocols and corporate policies. Matthew has demonstrated success with large clients like LinkedIn, Salesforce and dozens of small to mid-size companies looking to create more inclusive workplaces, work smarter, generate more revenue and move from bias to belonging®.
