It has always shocked me at how many engineers find themselves as ‘accidental managers’, that is a manager of people without making a conscious choice to become one. Additionally, they have to step away from the technical skills that they excel at. Recent CMI (Chartered Management Institute) research has shown that almost four out of five UK managers categorise themselves as so-called ‘accidental managers’, so engineers are not alone in this.
The common scenario is that you are doing a great job as maybe Lead Engineer, and your boss mentions that she’s thinking of making you ‘Team Leader’. The thought of additional responsibilities, status, promotion and possibly a pay rise, all entice you to say ‘Yes, please’. Six months down the line you may have a very different conversation with the boss – she’s disappointed to see that deadlines are being missed, your team are not meeting their targets, absence levels have increased and to cap it all, you’ve never worked so many hours a week and felt so little satisfaction from your job.
What went wrong? You became an accidental manager.
In this situation, whilst your technical skills are still important, you should now be focussing on your people skills:
Build trust – do what you say you will do. Keep your promises and don’t promise things that are outside your control. Allow your team to get to know you, your hobbies, interests, background etc. It is almost impossible to trust someone who won’t share information about themselves.
Listening and questioning – practice real ‘active listening’. Don’t just listen, look as if you’re listening. Make sure your team know they have been heard. Make time to ask the right questions and listen to the answers as this is the foundation to building trust with your team.
Delegation – You should be doing the work that ONLY YOU can do, everything else should be delegated. Work should be carried out at the lowest level possible, so that the company is making the best use of its available resources. Delegation is a good way of developing your staff, giving them opportunities to try new things and expand their skills. Don’t worry that you won’t have enough to do…your job is to create the right environment to allow your team to give of their best efforts.
Giving feedback – A good manager praises just as much as they give constructive criticism. Feedback should be honest, fair, balanced, specific and timely. Many new managers are frightened of upsetting their staff by giving feedback, but if you do not tell someone that their work does not come up to expectations, how will they know to improve? Often the office culture is one where if you are not being ‘told off’ than you have to assume that you are doing ok, which is not motivational or satisfactory.
Setting S.M.A.R.T goals – Every time you ask someone to do something, you should mentally check off the five letters in the word SMART – Was I sufficiently SPECIFIC in what I want? Have I given a MEASURABLE target? Is the task ACHIEVABLE? Have I made the necessary RESOURCES available? Have I explicitly stated the TIME constraints? These five elements are key to giving clear instructions and eliminating room for mis-understanding.
Holding people accountable – When the goals you set are SMART, and they have been understood and agreed by the person doing the task, then your job is to provide support while the task is being done and hold them accountable for achieving it. Do not keep peering over their shoulder, as that is ‘micro-management’ and very de-motivating, but agree an ‘escalation procedure’ in the event of things not going to plan. For instance, you may say “I will leave you to get on with this task, but if at any point it becomes apparent that you will miss the deadline, I expect you to pick up the phone and tell me.”
Peter Fischer, author of
‘The New Boss: How to Survive the first 100 days’ suggests that the accidental manager should sign-up for training and development programmes as a priority, and negotiate such training as part of the deal to accept the additional responsibilities. Not only will these give you some of the tools you need to get started, but they also give you the opportunity to compare yourself with equally challenged managers so you don’t feel so alone, and can be a much needed boost to your flagging confidence levels.