Succeeding as a First-Time Manager

HBR on leadership Welcome to HBR on leadership. Case studies and conversations with the world's top business and management experts, hand selected to help you unlock the best in those around you. Leading others comes with a lot of stress, but often that stress comes from misconceptions of our own role. Today we bring you a conversation about becoming a manager for the first time, with the help of three women who have recently moved into management roles. They speak candidly about being newly in charge of other people, the surprises, the rewards, and challenges. If you're a new manager yourself, you'll get some ideas for building trust with your new team and getting feedback from the people you manage. And if you're not a boss yet, you'll learn how to prepare for that transition. This episode originally aired on Women at Work in October 2022. Here it is. Amy B, remind me how long you've been a manager. I have been a manager for about 30 years, 28 years? Yeah. Have you managed both people and projects? Yeah. Both. And they were inseparable. I mean, so projects, it was managing a section of a magazine. That sort of thing. Right. Did you find one more challenging being responsible for a project for the first time or being responsible for someone else? Well, managing people is infinitely more challenging. How so? Getting a project done has a beginning, middle, and an end. And then it's over, but managing people is ongoing and the sense of responsibility you feel for their well-being in the workplace. I really take it seriously that I want people on my team to want to be part of that team and to want to do the work every day and to feel really proud of what they do. And for their development in so far as they need help with that, you know? Yeah. So, when you first started out though, did you have that same sense of purpose and vision about what you wanted to do? Absolutely not. All those years ago, I don't recall anyone learning about management, thinking about management as a separate pursuit from getting a magazine out or getting a TV show produced, right? Right. You were just focused on the end game. Right. Not the process. Exactly. It was all about the thing we were doing, not about how we were getting it done. Yeah. I have one more question about this transition you made in the early days of being a manager. What did you find most challenging? You know, in the very early days, you're hit by so many new expectations that just getting them into focus and understanding what's going on here is hard, but I do remember early on just having this realization that I had gone from as a solo contributor really having to fight for myself, to reorienting to the idea that I'm fighting for the people I work with, who work on my team, but also for the organization, right, that my responsibilities extend way beyond me. You're listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I'm Amy Bernstein. I'm Amy Gallo. Learning to lead other people is a stressful stretch assignment. Much of that stress stems from the misconceptions that individual contributors bring into the job. Misconceptions around how much authority they'll have, where power flows from, which outcomes they're responsible for, and the key challenges to come. Then they start doing the work and realize they don't know what they've gotten themselves into because no one told them the truth about what it means to be in charge. These are findings from research by Linda Hill, a Harvard Business School professor who's an expert on the experiences and failures of first-time managers. She's also described how new managers she's studied, pushed through, and became effective and successful leaders. After you've finished listening to this episode, you might want to check out her book, Being the Boss, and really anything she's written for HBR. Yeah, Linda is amazing. Other researchers have covered Hedge Ender bias makes the growing pains more painful for women. A lot of people unfortunately still don't see women as cut out for leadership, even if they never say so to your face. Settle acts of exclusion can prevent us from developing a firm identity as a leader, especially if our companies aren't taking certain actions to support that development. We'll touch on one of those actions a little later. On a related note, sorry, just one more downer, but I promise it's all uphill from here. Becoming a manager increases men's job satisfaction, but not women's. The researcher behind that finding Danielle Loup thinks the gap has to do with women being the human beings that we are, underestimate the probability that bad things like sexism will happen to us. And so she recommends that any woman considering entering management get a realistic assessment of the difficulties encountered by female managers. The more they are aware of these difficulties, she says, the more they can prepare for them. Which is why we're bringing in three women who can give us a realistic assessment. They've all been managers for less than a year. They've been dealing with these difficulties and they've gained so much wisdom along the way. Tanya is an electrical engineer in the public transportation industry in Boston. He's a business analyst at a nonprofit in London and Greta is a scientist in Madrid working for a global climate tech startup. So first, I want to thank all of you for joining us. Well, thank you so much for the conversation. Thank you, Amy. I want to start at the beginning with a question to all of you. Tell us how you became a manager. Let's start with you, Tanya. Well, so I'm an engineer on a day-to-day basis. I'm helping solve complex engineering problems and when I got into the industry, I started working in, you know, I started doing engineering things and pretty soon I realized that it wasn't just solving problems that interested me. It was also how you deal with people that really interested me. So I figured that, you know, let's try and explore that and I shared that with my managers and when the opportunity knocked on my door, I opened it and I was like, here I am. Perfect. And what about you, Maddie? I kind of fell into it. I did not follow my university plan career path. My background is in music and I very quickly realized that's not a career for me and I ended up working for higher education roles where I slowly got given more and more control over projects and realized that that was something I enjoyed doing and that was something that I seemed to be naturally quite good at. And so I slowly transitioned into being more of a business analyst and I saw this role come up that I do now and I kind of applied for it on a whim and I never thought I was going to get it because I always think I'm not quite qualified enough and I had the interview and it felt like the perfect job for me and I kind of fell into becoming a people manager. It was not really something I'd set my sights on but it's been a few months. I'm quite enjoying it. It seems to be going okay so far. Yeah. And what about you, Greta? So, a little bit like Maddie, it just kind of fell by working in a startup and suddenly the startup grows and it needs to have management and in my case they gave me the space to inquire a little bit what it meant to be a manager for a few weeks and then people upstairs did their job on like this is the right person to become a manager. With a little bit of hindsight, before working at the startup I was working at a company that was self-managed. So I think without knowing it, I became a manager by being my own manager and that was pretty tough. I think I'm pretty difficult to manage, actually, for myself. I want to go back to Utania. Tell us about how you prepared to step into the role. You really didn't fall into it. It was something that you took aim for so how did you prepare? I think my preparation being a manager was kind of too old. When I let my managers know that this is what I was interested in, they started giving me small things to deal with. Maybe they were lower stakes, but they gave me the freedom to explore how I would deal with the situation. So that was one thing that I did. And secondly, I think also knowing that because I wanted to be a manager, I also wanted to get my technical base to be really strong. Like I really wanted to know what I'm talking about. When I talk to people, I should know what I'm talking about. I really do not want to be one of those people who doesn't know what they're doing or they're pure to not know what they're doing. So trying to figure out what to do and also trying to know what I'm talking about. Right. That makes sense. Yes, absolutely. So I'm wondering when you first stepped into the role, you came in from the outside, right, Maddie? I did. What were some of the biggest obstacles you faced? I think my biggest obstacle, because I'm quite a bit younger than some of my team, was kind of proving that I am capable of doing the job and that I will be good as a people manager, as well as heading up the team. So my previous team. I've been promoted a few times, but I worked there over the course of five years and I kind of worked my way up so everybody knew me and knew my strengths where I was coming in from outside into heading up a team. I feel like there's a lot of pressure on me to prove that I'm highly capable and worthy of having that management role given that I am quite young. So let's dig into this question of building trust because that's really challenging and I recall facing that as well when I first went from being an individual contributor. To managing people, I'm wondering what you've learned about building trust as you've become more comfortable as a manager with Tonya and he thoughts about that. I think for me the basic way of building trust is to also show that you have respect for the other person and I think in turn you start getting respect the issue that many faces that's exactly how it is with me too. I'm probably one of the youngest people in my team and everybody I manage ranges from people maybe a year older to me versus somebody who's 30 years older to me. I think I have figured it out where if I generally do have respect for them and I show it to them, they kind of build that respect and trust towards me as well. And then I think another key to build someone's trust is to also show that you're not there to just prove your authority or them. You're here to learn as well. And every single day you ask them questions and they feel like they can put their trust in you because even if you don't know what you're doing, you would go back and ask them what their opinion is. So Maddie, how does Tonya's approach sand to you? I think it sounds good. I think the asking questions is something that I'm slowly getting better at when I first came in. I think I told myself that I shouldn't ask questions because I should know everything. But obviously every company runs completely differently. I change sectors when I change jobs. So there are a lot of things that I didn't know and I think I was afraid of coming in and looking like an idiot like I didn't have any clue what I was doing. But I think that level of kind of openness and maybe even some vulnerability is really key when you're trying to forge those trusting relationships with your team. But for me at the very beginning, what helped me a lot was that I said, "Do you have any questions for me?" So I felt that the only way of getting answers was to first prove that I was going to give also information because I found the topics that had to be covered some can be difficult to share for some people, like mental health, work, life, balance. And only someone is going to tell you that they're going through something difficult or hard. If maybe you've said the same at some point, so when the word vulnerability was said, that really resonated with me even myself saying, "Ask me questions, I'll answer." And that for me was very important to do. And this sounds like this need to be vulnerable to when trust seems like something that the three of you kind of learned in the moment on the job. I'm wondering, and I'll put this to you, Maddie, when you became a manager initially, what did you realize you were wholly unprepared for? What part of the job did you realize you really needed to think hard about? I think for me, it was, I had worked in the same kind of level for such a long time that I was so used to being involved in every little detail of things that were going on. And I really like to, I'm a bit of a control freak. I really like to know what's going on. I really like to be able to keep my eye on everything. And when I first came in and my team has multiple projects on the go, I physically do not have the capacity to keep an eye on every single little task that's going on. And I was so wholly unprepared to give up the level of control that I was used to and trust that other people do actually know what they're doing. I had to kind of ease off a bit and focus on the high level, but learn to trust other people with kind of the day today running of these projects, which was really difficult when I first started. I really like being in control of them. Yeah. Tanya, what about you? When I was offered this position, the first thing I said was, wow, that's a scary thought. Like, you know, I just, I was like, wow, it's really happening. And then the manager, you know, he just said, well, you can do it. You know, and we're here for everything you need. But even that moment, you know, I knew I could do it on a day to day basis, but I was totally not prepared to have a vision to have a strategy on how I would do this long term. And I think I'm still trying to figure it out, but that's that's kind of what I was not prepared for you. And do I always wanted to do this? Greta, what part of managing took you by surprise when you first started? I think the whole thing, like I honestly didn't know what to expect. And so everything was like a continuous discovering of like, oh, this happens. Okay, great. Next, next. So I think the whole thing took me by surprise. I don't think I had expectations good or bad. So I took everything a little bit of like a discovery. I think what took me by surprise is how difficult it is to be a people manager while it's not being a work manager. So that's my case. I do not manage the work of people. So I actually not only what Maddie was saying about not hoping that people know what they're doing is like, I know very little of what people have to do. Each of them have their work. And then I also have my work as an individual contributor. So what was interesting for me was to create like a network with other people from the company to understand what was the ecosystem that was happening for each of those people. And try to see how they could get that feedback that has to be a little bit like continuous. And then, yeah, what has surprised me as well is that I struggled to get feedback from the people I manage. I think I'm doing, it seems like a good job because people also tell me, no, you're doing a good job. I'm like, okay, great. So let's continue. So you know you're doing good jobs because people are telling you you're doing a good job. The team, like the people operations team, but not necessarily the people I manage, I think. And what do you think is getting in the way of you're getting feedback from the people you manage? I think it's just I am their manager. So it feels a little bit like tricky to evaluate a person that has some control of certain things, even if it seems as small as approving holidays. So I think it's that's a little bit of a blocking, but I also think maybe in my particular case where I manage scientists and they may not have had a manager before is what to expect from a manager. So it's difficult to calibrate what is good, what is bad, what it's okay. So Maddie, I'm wondering if you have any advice for Greta about how to deal with this challenge of getting feedback from the people you manage and how to calibrate any thoughts. I've not by any means correct this, but I've made some progress by I have like weekly or biweekly catch up with my team, depending on kind of where they're at and what level of support they need. And we've always started with what's something that you're really proud of this week and what's something that you could have done with my score on. Like I wasn't aware it was going on or I just wasn't there when they really needed it. And so that's been a way for them to kind of be able to highlight where they're having problems, but also they've just been able to celebrate their successes. So they might feel a bit happier about being open about, you know, you really drop the ball on this. I had to chase you like three or four times to get it done that kind of thing. Something you just said was really helpful, which is instead of saying, what do you think of me, how am I doing? You gave them a very specific question. What could you have used more support on, right? Yeah, I think they were a lot more open about kind of work specific things where they might need help the I've kind of them been able to. Over the last kind of four or five months figure out where there might be areas where as a manager, I need to develop if it's, you know, I'm not very responsive when they're tagging me in like DevOps issues or I'm not very good at replying to emails or picking up messages on time. And that's causing them delays that's kind of an area of feedback that I've slowly seen that I can then pick up on. And I think there are a lot more comfortable providing like work related examples than just being honest about like you don't reply when I sent you a message or it just takes too long for you to do something. Right, I actually go ahead, I just want to jump in because I was something that Greta said really I think resonated with me when she said that it's tough to go to somebody you manage and ask them for how you're doing is a manager because what are they even supposed to say what you didn't approve my vacation and I'm angry at you. You know, so how do you really go ask someone about how you are managing them, you could ask for specific things like how can you use my support, but what other kind of feedback could you ask them that. Validates that you are being a good manager, I have several thoughts about this because management to me has two dimensions, there's managing people and we've really been focusing on managing people and then there's managing projects and for the latter, you know that you're doing a good job if the job gets done well. But you want to make sure that in the course of getting the project done well that the team doing the project is feeling good about their work and good about their collaboration is really proud. of the outcome. And so I'm going to pick up on Maddie's theme of the specific question. How could I have supported you better? You know, even an after-action review can be a form of feedback. What were the barriers? How could we have removed the barriers? It doesn't actually have to be about you. And then in the moment, you know, you don't have to actually say give me feedback to get feedback. You can see in the way people engage with their work. You can see it in the way that they engage with each other. And if you can read from their demeanor and the way they show up that they seem to be happy doing what they're doing, then something's going right. And you don't actually have to have someone come back to you and say, you know, Greta, you are an awesome boss. You know, Tonya, I don't know where I'd be without you. You can see it in the way they engage with their work. And in the way the work is getting done. That's just one thought. It's sort of reading signals. They're indirect rather than direct. I do want to ask you guys a question. It's such a change to move from an individual contributor role to a management role. And Tonya, I wonder how you've experienced that shift and how that feels to you personally. Yeah, absolutely. So I think being an individual contributor, all you're thinking about is, how do I get this done? And really, you're just washing it off your hands and giving it to somebody else to take care of. But I think as a manager, you're getting that work for, I don't know, as many people as you manage. So for probably a 20 or 30 people that I manage right now, that's that's what I'm getting. And then I'm trying to figure out how do I strategize this? How what's my vision? You know, I take the work of 30 people, I put it together. But what does it really mean? So I think I'm trying to figure out personally what that transformation looks like. Because I think, you know, maybe I should have a certain kind of managerial style where I try to be helpful, but also, you know, I switch hats and I become the manager, you know, but that transformation is something that I struggle with because I also feel like I should be me and I shouldn't change who I am because I got this role because somebody must have thought I'm capable of doing it. So maybe that's a question to Greta and Maddie as well. How did you deal with that transformation? How did you mentally think differently when you became a manager? Maddie, you want to take a swing? Sure. I certainly felt the same way as you that I had to become like a manager when I became a manager and that it was going to be effectively, I had to find another side of my personality or something had to change. But then I did come to that realization that you were saying to me that, you know, I was, I was given this job based on who I am. And so it took a while and I'm still not totally comfortable with it. But I think I've started to just try and be more authentically myself. And it's tough because there are times when I'm like, oh, you know, maybe if I've been firmer about something where maybe I wasn't clear enough. And if I'd been more of a stereotypical like male manager and just been very blunt or to the point women have had delays or a confusion. But I think that's just kind of something I have to take as a learning experience and fundamentally, I can only be me. Right. Well, have you ever heard of the double bind? Any of you? No. So the double bind is this trade off that women in leadership roles have to deal with where they have to balance the need to demonstrate competence with the need to be likable. There's a great article that we ran a few years ago called Women Rising, the Unseen Barriers. And I learned a lot from this article. But that double bind feels so real to me where, you know, you said Maddie to manage like a man, which no one thinks ill of a guy for being firm and for stating his view and for moving along without being super, you know, collaborative and taking into account the views and feelings of everyone in the room. And so I think when you think about this double bind, one of the things that the authors of this article recommend is that you settle on a purpose as a leader. Who do you want to be? I think that's something you said, both of Utania and Maddie. And I would love to hear what you think of this Greta, but who are you as a leader? Well, how do you want to show up as a leader? That will help you navigate that double bond. Greta, how does that sound to you? Does that ring any bells? So many. And I read the article and it was really shocking. So in my previous job, because of being a self-managed organization, a lot of self-reflection has to happen. And one of the important things that the person of people operations there taught me was find your own purpose. So after being in the company for like a year and a half, I spent a whole week self-reflecting and I asked for lots of feedback and somehow managed to get a purpose out of it. And that has been helping me to make decisions since then. And I think maybe I may not have struggled so much because I had that homework done before that I'm pretty amazed of how much return of investment I've got just just from doing that exercise. So it was really it was really nice to read about it and and be like, oh, yeah, it's actually it seems like I did the right thing following this research. Terrific. You know, I'd love to ask you. I wonder if any of you would be willing to share a managerial challenge that you're dealing with right now. And let's see if we can help you. Maddie, I saw you nod your head. Yeah, I have I have a couple, but I think the biggest one I'm trying to do that the moment is we're about to hit appraisal season. So I've been starting to have more structured discussions with my team about what we're going to be looking at in their appraisals. And I have the member of my team who is phenomenal. They are incredibly experienced. But they've been in this role for probably 18 to 20 years. And they have no desire to change role. And they don't really have any identified kind of development goals. If there's learning they want to do or if there's a different type of project or if we're looking at coding stuff, if there's a new language, they want to learn. And I find it quite difficult to understand that as someone who's always I have like 93 courses on the go at any one time to stop myself from getting bored. But also in terms of how I'm going to do this appraisal, we always have to set development goals. And just trying to find something I want to push them to develop, but I don't want to push them outside of their like so far outside of their comfort zone that they, you know, don't thrive. I want them to continue doing this incredible work that they're producing. But it's a it's a tricky situation to try and balance. All right, how would you handle it, Tonya? Well, I think I would probably ask this person what it is that they want to do. Maybe I, maybe this is not the situation that you're in, but I also have someone similar. But when I asked them what they want to do, they told me they were pretty content in their role and that they were not really looking for a challenge. So I think that helped me scale back and say, well, if they don't want more, then what is it that I can give them? What about you, Greta? So the way I see it is you can also just enjoy the slow journey with them, you know, it's a little bit of like being by the side. And yeah, I see a little bit of like a journey companion type of thing, but I don't know if it works from my own experience. I think it's such an interesting challenge, particularly if you are so focused on your own growth as a manager and this new role. But you have to remember that part of your job as a manager is to make sure you are setting up the people you're responsible for for success and that success takes place in organizational terms, but also in very personal terms. So understanding what this individual really wants, you know, I think you could have a conversation ahead of the appraisal, Matty, where you say, you know, it's not a secret, it's a appraisal season, but I'd love to know ahead of time what your ambition is. Where do you want to be? So I can do well by you in this appraisal in that spirit. I would have that conversation. You never want to have an appraisal that's a surprise to the person being appraised. The other thing is if what the person says to you is, you know what, I am in the job that makes me happy. And I don't want to take on more responsibility. Then you have to calibrate your feedback to that fact that this person is really happy and to something else that you pointed out that this person really does a great job. You want this person to continue to do the great job and you are responsible for ensuring that this person enjoys doing that great job and wants to stick on on this team. So one thing I sometimes do in appraisals is I actually, I hope, or people leaders isn't listening, but sometimes I ignore the category on top of the box, you know. And sometimes I just ask in the appraisal, what would help you do your job better? And you know, how do I set you up for the success you have in mind? Because frankly, you're doing a great job and you're not looking for a promotion and you're not looking for a change of responsibility. So what's missing for you and let's talk about that? You know it's really calibrated to the individual because I know that this person is valuable and I want to make sure that this person is happy doing what this person is doing. I hope that's helpful to you. Yeah definitely. Tanya, tell us about a challenge you're facing. Okay so as I mentioned I'm you know I became a manager about three months ago when I took over the role from my former manager that I still work with you know I work with him on daily basis. So obviously this person has been through pretty much everything that I'm going through on a daily basis so I'm inclined to go ask for help and I get help every single time. What now happens is that because there's a lot of pressure to get things done right, managing a multi-million dollar project and you mistake you make and cost you a lot of money. So it comes down to the fact that you know sometimes I struggle with well when should I continue asking for advice or when should I not ask for advice and do this on my own because granted the advice is going to be great but then it kind of goes back to is this really who I am you know like if my former manager would suggest well this is how I would deal with the situation and I don't agree with that maybe I have the option of not doing that but then I think will I make a mistake by not listening to them you know if I do this my own way is it going to come back and fight me. I struggle with when should I ask for advice when should I not and of course somebody else's experience is my game so if I can learn from them that's the biggest learning that I can have too. So it's what advice and when not but also whether you have to take it once you've asked for it. Yeah and they always say find your own path which makes sense but then what does that really mean? Like what is your path the way you're going. Alright Maddie your turn how would you help Tanya? I think I certainly did this at the start of more maybe my project managing than people managing and I would ask my former manager you know how would you deal with this have you dealt with things like this in the past and he was actually the one who told me that the best thing for me to kind of start feeling more confident and to start taking more responsibility from my decisions was he wouldn't give me advice until I basically had to sit down and say this is what I'm thinking these are the pros of identified these are the cons and not what would you do but have I missed anything. So it taught me that you know I can trust myself I do know what I'm doing and over time it meant that I would actually go to them less and less often for advice because I go oh well this isn't exactly the same situation as what I've dealt with before but last time we did this can I maybe you know shape what I'm thinking of doing now based on the decision that I made before so being forced to kind of do all of the work myself and then just say what if what have I not considered is there like some blinding the obvious thing that I've just completely overlooked really helped me to start to not ask for advice but also I just feel confident in saying to know what actually I don't agree with that I see it completely differently and the confidence is such an important part of it but you know this question of whether you have to take advice that's where figuring out who you want to be as a leader and how you want to show up and what where your compass is you know if being kind is important if showing your competence is important if fairness is important you set your own priorities and that will help you figure out whether or not to take the advice because if a piece of advice doesn't sit well with you then you owe it to yourself to ask why and really examine that and that means you have to engage emotionally and intellectually with who you want to be as a manager how about you Greta? My question is how does management gets showcased as an individual contributor I think is fairly easy to do a cover letter for example or to ask for not necessarily a new job a grant or a scholarship and to list like all the deliverables but because I think there's this confidentiality included in being a manager and often the challenges and the wins come from people improving or learning you don't want to single out people and be like I help this person from being this to being that and is it just by saying oh I have these many years of experience as a manager for me it feels like very little it's not data based and maybe I'm a bit of a data junky but you can show how the people from who you are responsible have grown have taken on new responsibilities have accomplished whatever it is they've accomplished I know you're not in charge of a task or a project you oversee people but I assume that it means that you oversee their growth and their engagement showing that people haven't left under your management that somehow your management has enhanced the reputation of your team internally your organization externally does that seem feasible to you? It helps but then I have another question which has to do with the speed right so delivering a task could be within a sprint of two weeks but delivering the growth of a person I don't think that happens in the sprint of two weeks so there is that lag I'm enjoying it I have a great time but maybe this is a misconception people don't understand actually how much energy and effort is put in that one person growing? Yeah so much of the the challenge of people management is that it is very hard to measure and that's why they have 360 degree feedback for example what are people saying about you the people who come in contact with you and what are your direct reports say about you but it's very hard to measure how well you've set up someone for success and you have to be able to find a way to make that part of your job gratifying to yourself in some way you know when it's not working you see that indirect feedback you can tell when people are unhappy and you know people can be unhappy for a million reasons only one of which is they're not happy with the way Greta is managing them right I mean it's just a constant engagement with the people you're responsible for okay but I don't think what you're asking for is how do you get credit it's how do you measure success right both both well the the getting credit well and also measuring success you there are tools out there that are designed for that and they're not it's not hard numbers stuff it's mostly you know the soft feedback the 360 degree feedback it's looking at how stable your team is how many of your team have gotten promoted you know how much more they're taking on how engaged they seem if your organization measures engagement somehow you know if there's some kind of net promoter score exercise they will look at your team they will look at those scores by manager so that's one way that happens okay so Amy how would you quantify something like this on your resume so I think what you'd like to share that would very bad apply for an internal sharing of achievements probably but how do you put that on a resume say that I've been a manager for X years and I feel like as you grow up in your professional career people's resume starts shrinking because there's just so much you do and like you know I was updating my LinkedIn a few days ago and I was just like I don't really know what I should put down anymore because I feel like I do everything you know so what do you put on your resume I'm a people manager but that could mean very many different things for anybody so this is more about the story you want your resume to tell if it's a story about progress and learning and taking on more and more responsibility and delivering on your assignments and expanding your influence that's how you frame it all right you have to figure out what story you want your resume to tell about you and I've been a manager for 10 years okay I'm did you get excited by that I think I have taken on bigger and bigger teams managing larger and larger budgets and I'm sorry Greta kisses better project but and this project that I managed we delivered it on time and under budget and the results were 20 million extra dollars to our bottom line or something like that you can show the impact of your work that way can you put these numbers near resume I mean does that sound too bold it's not bold to state the facts it's kind of self-defeating not to state the facts if they make your argument for you there's a big difference between saying I managed a million dollar budget on a project that you know that exceeded all expectations and give the metrics there's a big difference between saying that and saying I am an awesome manager trust me right - Right, absolutely. - This has been a great conversation. You guys kind of knock me out with the level of self-awareness you've shown and your candor. And I really appreciate your willingness to be so honest with us in this conversation. - For me, it's been so great to see other new managers going through similar issues. - It's been really nice. - I'm sharing them in a way that maybe it means more people slash women become managers 'cause I think it's exciting and challenging, but it's difficult to explain how it is that it's exciting and challenging. So it was good to get different points of view for it. - Thank you, everyone. - Well, here's to more women managers and more women managers like you, thank you. - Thanks. (upbeat music) - What stood out to you in your conversation with them? - They were each one of them so thoughtful about being a manager and they took their responsibilities of management so seriously, even the couple who were kind of thrown into it. - Yeah, well, and you can imagine being in that role. I mean, I've managed people early in my career, very briefly, thankfully. - But I remember just thinking, I just don't want to mess it up. I wasn't thinking, how do I do this? Well, all the questions and thoughtfulness that they brought to the role, I was just like, please don't mess it up, please don't mess it up. - Well, we don't know that they weren't thinking about that. - Yeah. - And everyone wants not to screw it up, but that kind of cautious approach guarantees you won't make a difference. - Right. - Right, yes. - It meant you only show up in negative when something goes wrong. - Yeah. I heard this quote in a podcast, it was about leadership, but you have to be brave today to be confident tomorrow. And I do feel like with managing, you do have to sort of put yourself out there in a way that you're really uncomfortable. You could hear in Tanya and Maddie, - Oh my God, that's true. - That's true. - The discomfort of trying to figure this out. - Yeah. - Well, you're constantly putting yourself out there, and it's a very vulnerable place to be, if you want to make a difference. And if the difference you want to make is in helping people get where they want to go and help the organization succeed, and just helping people feel really proud of what they're working on with you. It's very uncomfortable, but you also develop a thick skin, and that discomfort stops being so discomforting. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? - Yeah. Yeah. I will say one thing that surprised me about the conversation is that none of the women mentioned conflict or negotiation granted, I'm conflict obsessed. - Yes. - But I was surprised that none of them found that to be an unexpected part of the job, right? Having to give negative feedback. It's constant diplomacy, negotiating what one person needs versus another person needs, telling someone they can't have something setting boundary, right? All of that. - And constantly asking yourself what's a win here, right? - Right. - Yeah. - But none of them named that as a skill. - I was a little bit surprised by that. - Yeah. - I have no idea why. I'm sure if we did the dealing with conflict as a new manager episode, we'd have five hours. - Yeah. - Yeah. - To air. - Our colleague, Nikki, who's been on our show before, she manages here at each bear, but she's managed in previous jobs, and she's told me that, and again, I'm conflict obsessed, but she's told me that was the most surprising thing about becoming a manager. Was just the number of difficult conversations you have to have on a daily basis. - Yeah, and learning how to become a soft target, if you know what I mean? - No, what do you mean? - What I mean is, when someone comes at you with, and I had this happen in my first couple of weeks as a manager, it was someone who, at the same time as I was promoted into the management role and inherited this person, he was taken off of a column that he had written every week. This was not my doing, but it was apparently my fault. - Yes, I cannot believe that you take over this job and you relieve me of my responsibilities, and I couldn't point a finger and say, "Hey, I had nothing to do with this." I knew that, but what I had to figure out was, how to move from wanting to defend myself, to helping this person deal with the pain and disappointment of losing a column, right? - Yeah, not sure I was even remotely successful, but making that shift was important. - It's a lot about managing your ego, I think, 'cause I would have been like, "That's not my fault." - Not my fault. - It's not my fault that you lost the job. - You should have written better columns. - Yeah, exactly, you know, they were a little boring. Yeah, you can't go there, 'cause that's really not the point. - You really spend a lot of time asking yourself, what's really going on here? - Mm-hmm, and I love that, what's the win? - That's a great question to come back to. That was Amy Bernstein and Amy Gallo in conversation with three new managers on Women at Work. If you liked this episode and you want to hear more about how gender shapes our careers, check out Women at Work wherever you get your podcasts. We'll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about leadership from the Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you're there, be sure to leave us a review. We're a production of the Harvard Business Review. If you want more articles, case studies, books, and videos like this, be sure to subscribe to HBR at hbr.org. This episode was produced by Amanda Cursey and Sandy, Ian Fox, and me, Hannah Bates. Tina Toby Mac edited the original episode, music by coma media. Special thanks to Rob Eckhart, Morene Hoke, Audi Ignatius, Karen Player, Ramsey Kabaz, Nicole Smith, Ann Bartholomew, and you, Arla Sinner. See you next week. (upbeat music)