Page 13 - HBR's 10 Must Reads for New Managers

HILL
Idea in Brief

Ask new managers about their obey your orders, despite your
early days as bosses, and you’ll formal authority over them. You
hear tales of disorientation, even won’t have more freedom to make
despair. As Hill points out, most things happen—instead, you’ll
novice bosses don’t realize how feel constrained by organizational
sharply management differs from interdependencies. And you’re
individual work. Hampered by responsible not only for maintain-
misconceptions, they fail the trials ing your own operations—but also
involved in this rite of passage. And for initiating positive changes both
when they stumble, they jeopar- inside and outside of your areas of
dize their careers and inflict stag- responsibility.
gering costs on their organizations.
Armed with realistic expectations,
How to avoid this scenario? Be- you’ll be more likely to survive the
ware of common misconceptions transition to management—and
about management: For example, generate valuable results for your
subordinates don’t necessarily organization.

But imagine how much more effective they would be if the transi-
tion were less traumatic.
To help new managers pass this first leadership test, we need to
help them understand the essential nature of their role—what it
truly means to be in charge. Most see themselves as managers and
leaders; they use the rhetoric of leadership; they certainly feel the
burdens of leadership. But they just don’t get it.

Why Learning to Manage Is So Hard

One of the first things new managers discover is that their role, by
definition a stretch assignment, is even more demanding than they’d
anticipated. They are surprised to learn that the skills and methods
required for success as an individual contributor and those required
for success as a manager are starkly different—and that there is a gap
between their current capabilities and the requirements of the new
position.
In their prior jobs, success depended primarily on their personal
expertise and actions. As managers, they are responsible for setting
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