1. Good things happen if they have been ready for the next challenge and maybe even a  little bored or burned out by the routine work they are so good at doing
2. Bad things happen if they love the work they have been doing and you just added much work (the management) they do not like
3. Negative repercussions occur when they have no desire to coordinate and lead the efforts of others and/or have no leadership experience, inherent skills or desire to work directly with employees
4. The biggest challenges occur in the form of company stagnation and mediocrity when they do not possess the inner desire to develop other people and access their potential

Here are some skills that are very often missing as you promote or hire someone to management that you may need to purposefully work to develop:

1. Communicate expectations effectively.  A manager must clearly formulate their expectations, and verbalize them in a way that makes sense to the employee.  The employee needs to be paying attention, and verbalize back what they have heard.  A head nod means the expectations may not even have made it to their ears, much less their brain to process, voice concerns and in the end – agree to do their best.
2. Accountability – You can’t hold people accountable to what they didn’t agree to.  You must find a way to measure what you hope to hold people accountable for.  And then you must have the tough, but effective conversations when expectations are not met.
3. Delegation – In order to effectively delegate, the manager must transfer ownership of the task.  This requires setting the expectation (see above), obtaining genuine agreement from the employee, setting a timetable and following up (see accountability).
4. Engage in productive conflict –  ‘“Yes” employees’ appear agreeable, yet don’t produce.  Silent employees hope you will go away so they can continue doing things as they always have.  Strong, solid performers honestly believe they know better.  Quiet, undiscovered employees require conversations that push them, and probably the manager, outside their comfort zone.
5. Setting goals – Managers are often good at accepting the goals set for them.  However, it is never as powerful to work towards something you feel you must do to keep your job than it is to engage the manager in conversation about their goals for their department or area, match those with the company goals, and include goals to help them professionally develop.  And, write them down.  What do your managers see as possibilities in their department?
6. Project completion – Getting from where you are to where you want to be cannot be accomplished simply by working really hard and wanting to get there.  Ambitious goals require a plan that takes into account where we want to be in three months, and counting back to what we need to do each of the three months, this week and today; and do that daily.
7. Coaching team members – probably the critical skill most often lacking – but assumed to exist in charismatic and inspirational leaders.  Coaching is having a series of conversations with an individual in order to connect with them, assist them to engage in their professional development, and to be able to discover their potential and accomplish more that they or you thought they could.

What professional development do your managers need from you?

Do you happen to work for a boss who has been promoted based on the skills they have to complete specific tasks, but is still a pain to work with?  Success is based on building upon your strengths, but often promotions are based on skills.  The problem with that… is that there is passion associated with strengths but often not with skills.

Natalie is very good at organizing meetings.  She solicits input from everyone, sends out an agenda prior to the meeting, starts on time, keeps things on track, gets everyone to commit to their action items and ends on time.  The problem is that she is not energized by this process, and no matter how organized she is, and how well she communicates minutes and progress to her superiors, there is no passion for what she is doing.  Becky is the passionate leader who is slightly less organized, may not have complete minutes, and may not catch the attention of corporate with her sometimes “off-the-wall” ideas, but her meetings are full of passion, bring out the best in her team, discover potential and move forward in unique ways.

Do you work for a company that would value Natalie or Becky more?  For which boss do you most enjoy working?  Realizing who your boss most resembles, and pinpointing your preference, is your first step.  Then realize that you also have strengths and skills and that working on things that energize you as often as possible will yield the greatest success, even if that is not a promotion with your current employer.

If you are the boss, move forward from consistency and task completion to passionate pursuit and development of your strengths, and encourage your team to do the same.

By the way, as the employee and a fellow professional, nothing says that you can’t have conversations with your boss about their strengths – things they are passionate about.  Offer to work with them on a project, ask questions about how one of their strengths-related initiatives are going, and work a little harder on those things they are passionate about.  It benefits you in the end if your boss discovers not only success in the form of raise or promotion, but also in discovering their potential as a leader.

Too often, leaders forget that a promotion to management requires a major transition.  From being great at what they do to taking on a whole new set of tasks, to measuring their own success in completely different ways, to losing their peers who they knew and liked and gaining employees from whom they need to keep a distance, it is a traumatic experience.  Are you there to help them through it?

Here are the Top 5 Mistakes that you might have made in the transition:

1. Assumed their tactical expertise would directly translate into management expertise. Many leaders have their own story of how they were thrown into a management role and had to figure it out the hard way.  Some survive that way and some don’t.  Internal promotions also assume that the person has more knowledge about the bigger picture or that the expectations from above are clearer than they are.

Create a training outline. Every new role, whether it be for a new employee or a promoted employee, should be prefaced with a training outline – the list of things that they need to know in order to be successful in the new position, when they will be taught or expected to know/master each area, and what mastery looks like.  If there are things that they already know, they can be quickly checked off.

2. Failed to teach them the management skills necessary to thrive. Managing people requires they understand how to create and communicate expectations, connect with their direct reports, inspire them to do well, and engage them in productive accountability discussions.  These are not natural skills to most individuals and must be learned and then coached by their supervisor.

Do an honest inventory of these skills, and plan to help them to learn more in the areas which they are weak. Provide them books and resources, the opportunity for a mentor and key leadership relationships, classes or a leadership coach, and teach them yourself the areas in which you excel.  Don’t ignore a lack of skills that you have noticed from their time as an employee!  Use that information.

3. Did not set your expectations clearly. There is an incredibly long distance from what is in your head to what comes out of your mouth.  Your new manager cannot read your mind. There are many things you may expect that you have never clearly outlined or discussed, even if you have worked with them for some time. “Improve morale” may mean one thing to you and something quite different to the promoted manager.

Clarify your expectations. Ask yourself:

§what the most important tasks are that they will do

§what results you hope they will achieve

§how you’d like them to do the job – detailing only necessary details to keep them focused but giving them room to do it their way

§what other managers have done that you do not like and wish the new manager not to do and

§what deadlines you would put on each of these expectations and how you will measure whether or not they have been a success.

4. Offered no accountability. Even the best employee who takes initiative and tries their hardest will not thrive without some degree of feedback.  This step is critical and is often seen as unimportant – especially if you already know this person to be a start employee.  In order to meet your expectations and company goals, they must receive input as to what they are achieving and where they are falling short.  If delivered along the way, they have time to tweak their performance, not just to fail or survive in the end.  If you don’t provide feedback, yet let them continue to under-perform, shame on you!  If you don’t provide feedback in the areas they are doing well – don’t expect that behavior to continue!

Provide routine, expected, conversational feedback. Set a routine conversation, with a set agenda (of focus areas, new skills to learn, tasks to perfect, action items, successes, challenges, etc.).  The conversation is scheduled, the appointment is kept and the new employee is expected to be the one to prepare for and report on the agenda you have set.

5. You never asked them to think. Transition to management can be a traumatic one.  Suddenly, they are in charge and powerful, yet they’ve lost their peers and their comfort zone.  They are no longer rewarded for doing the tasks they are good at, but expected to think strategically and develop other people as well.  There are very few right answers and very few set processes in management.  Management and leadership are about getting to the results, using processes in place, improving them as necessary, solving problems and developing people. If they are not thinking – you’re in trouble.

Get them to think. Getting them to think requires that you set the direction, ask questions and get them talking about how they see the situation, possible solutions and approaches and why they will choose the avenue they choose.  Too often managers of managers still want to be the one to solve the problems even though they have a manager to lead their team to solve a problem.  Thinking through a situation can be facilitated greatly by a manager who asks the right questions instead of giving the solution.  You want your new manager to be independent, so ask them the questions and get them to think!

What mistakes have you made when promoting someone to management?  What have you done right?

Too often, leaders forget that a promotion to management requires a major transition.  From being great at what they do to taking on a whole new set of tasks, to measuring their own success in completely different ways, to losing their peers who they knew and liked and gaining employees from whom they need to keep a distance, it is a traumatic experience.  Are you there to help them through it?

Here are the Top 5 Mistakes that you might have made in the transition:

1. Assumed their tactical expertise would directly translate into management expertise. Many leaders have their own story of how they were thrown into a management role and had to figure it out the hard way.  Some survive that way and some don’t.  Internal promotions also assume that the person has more knowledge about the bigger picture or that the expectations from above are clearer than they are.

Create a training outline. Every new role, whether it be for a new employee or a promoted employee, should be prefaced with a training outline – the list of things that they need to know in order to be successful in the new position, when they will be taught or expected to know/master each area, and what mastery looks like.  If there are things that they already know, they can be quickly checked off.

2. Failed to teach them the management skills necessary to thrive. Managing people requires they understand how to create and communicate expectations, connect with their direct reports, inspire them to do well, and engage them in productive accountability discussions.  These are not natural skills to most individuals and must be learned and then coached by their supervisor.

Do an honest inventory of these skills, and plan to help them to learn more in the areas which they are weak. Provide them books and resources, the opportunity for a mentor and key leadership relationships, classes or a leadership coach, and teach them yourself the areas in which you excel.  Don’t ignore a lack of skills that you have noticed from their time as an employee!  Use that information.

3. Did not set your expectations clearly. There is an incredibly long distance from what is in your head to what comes out of your mouth.  Your new manager cannot read your mind. There are many things you may expect that you have never clearly outlined or discussed, even if you have worked with them for some time. “Improve morale” may mean one thing to you and something quite different to the promoted manager.

Clarify your expectations. Ask yourself:

§what the most important tasks are that they will do

§what results you hope they will achieve

§how you’d like them to do the job – detailing only necessary details to keep them focused but giving them room to do it their way

§what other managers have done that you do not like and wish the new manager not to do and

§what deadlines you would put on each of these expectations and how you will measure whether or not they have been a success.

4. Offered no accountability. Even the best employee who takes initiative and tries their hardest will not thrive without some degree of feedback.  This step is critical and is often seen as unimportant – especially if you already know this person to be a start employee.  In order to meet your expectations and company goals, they must receive input as to what they are achieving and where they are falling short.  If delivered along the way, they have time to tweak their performance, not just to fail or survive in the end.  If you don’t provide feedback, yet let them continue to under-perform, shame on you!  If you don’t provide feedback in the areas they are doing well – don’t expect that behavior to continue!

Provide routine, expected, conversational feedback. Set a routine conversation, with a set agenda (of focus areas, new skills to learn, tasks to perfect, action items, successes, challenges, etc.).  The conversation is scheduled, the appointment is kept and the new employee is expected to be the one to prepare for and report on the agenda you have set.

5. You never asked them to think. Transition to management can be a traumatic one.  Suddenly, they are in charge and powerful, yet they’ve lost their peers and their comfort zone.  They are no longer rewarded for doing the tasks they are good at, but expected to think strategically and develop other people as well.  There are very few right answers and very few set processes in management.  Management and leadership are about getting to the results, using processes in place, improving them as necessary, solving problems and developing people. If they are not thinking – you’re in trouble.

Get them to think. Getting them to think requires that you set the direction, ask questions and get them talking about how they see the situation, possible solutions and approaches and why they will choose the avenue they choose.  Too often managers of managers still want to be the one to solve the problems even though they have a manager to lead their team to solve a problem.  Thinking through a situation can be facilitated greatly by a manager who asks the right questions instead of giving the solution.  You want your new manager to be independent, so ask them the questions and get them to think!

What mistakes have you made when promoting someone to management?  What have you done right?