Top Rookie Manager Mistakes (That Make You Look Like a Jerk)

Congratulations! You just received your first big promotion. Woo hoo!! Chances are you’re about to make one of these rookie mistakes:

Saying how troubled the business is that you’ve just taken over. That way, if your results are poor, it’s not your fault, because you inherited a dog. And if the results are good, you’ve been successful in the face of almost-impossible circumstances. People see through this.

Talking badly about people who quit. Like talking badly about the business you’ve just taken over, this is another transparent means to manage your ego. But this only serves to make your team wonder what you might say about them one day. And while being gracious to departing colleagues might seem obvious, you’d be amazed how often “Well, I was just about to fire him anyway” is said, even at the most senior levels.

Immediately replacing the old team with “your” team, and particularly a team that looks and sounds a lot like you. There’s comfort in choosing everyone on your team, all of whom then “owe” you for their jobs. But the best business strategies can emerge out of discomfort, and that can mean having people on your team whom you may not particularly want to have to your home for dinner.

Getting detached from the clients. Customers and clients are messy. It can be very easy to spend more time away from them. PowerPoint slides and spreadsheets deliver much crisper answers than what you can hear from an actual person.

“Taking the hill” on your strategy without first getting buy-in from the team. The days of decreeing a strategy and then telling folks to execute on it are fading in the rear-view mirror. And that’s a good thing, because a strategy that doesn’t incorporate what your team and customers can tell you will almost certainly be sub-optimal. I’ve seen more than one manager decree a not-well-thought-out strategy and have his team essentially wait him out; after all, the next boss will be announced soon.

Not recognizing that your words carry more weight than they used to. Once you’re in management, your words (and your mood and your tone) are subject to interpretation by those who can be impacted by them. A poorly thought-out comment or joke can cause significant unintended anxiety.

Being overly certain and acting like you’re invulnerable. The right types of candor can go a long way, such as recognizing the uncertainty in a business situation. Being absolutely certain and then dead wrong can be fatal for a new manager. It’s ok to let your team see you sweat a bit. That said, there are few highly successful pessimistic leaders; optimism, even in the face of adversity, goes a long way.

Continue to do your old job, because you can do it better than the new guy. A corollary of this is insisting that your replacement do your old job the way you did it.

Getting too big for your britches. Years ago, when I joined Citi, one of my new partners invited me to lunch. When we sat at the table, his assistant brought him a stack of message and papers; he read them while I sat on ice. Then he barked at her to get various people on the phone so that he could dole out some orders while I twiddled my thumbs. Classic power play. I never liked him from that moment on.

Talking more than listening. I’ve written before that I recall sitting through one business review in which the senior person did literally 90%+ of the talking. I wondered why he even bothered because he certainly didn’t learn anything….but I’m sure he felt pretty important.

Not talking enough. Yes, I recognize that this flies in the face of what I wrote above. But once you have settled on a strategy and communicated it doesn’t mean that your team has taken it in. People typically have to hear it several times, in several different forums, for it to sink in. I saw this first hand from a friend of mine who worked as a senior banker at a competitor. Every once in awhile, over a glass of wine, I used to pretend-casually ask her about her firm’s latest strategic initiative or product roll-out; she typically had little idea what I was talking about.

These are the rookie managers errors I’ve observed most often. What did I miss?

Sallie Krawcheck is the Business Leader of the professional woman’s network, 85 Broads. 85 Broads has more than 35,000 members, around the world and across industries.

(Photo: Flickr, Anthony DeLorenzo)