Newly Promoted? How to Manage Pitfalls Facing a New Supervisor
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- Newly Promoted? How to Manage Pitfalls Facing a New Supervisor
Just 3 months ago, Ishmael was promoted…yes, he was the the new supervisor.
He was very proud of himself because he’d worked long and hard for it and his colleagues knew this.
And for a while he really thought he had their trust, respect and support. After all, he’d worked with them for more than five years and they had equal opportunity to apply for the job.
But now, the once happy department has become a combative war zone.
The team shows little to no respect for his authority and even the boss is now questioning if he was the right person for the job after all.
The case for promoting from within
The doubts of his boss were particularly worrying because she had held a meeting with the staff and outlined her case for hiring a new supervisor from within. Here’s what she highlighted as important:
1. Familiar with the company’s business model
They would already know the product, the customers, the systems, the ins and outs of how things actually get done — not just how they’re supposed to get done. Anyone who demonstrated that they understand the company’s business model would be a candidate for promotion.
2. Demonstrate the qualities of intrapreneurship
The newly promoted employee would take on creative risks and be willing to develop innovative projects, helping to grow the business faster than an external hire could. Once promoted, they can help the business to foster similar qualities of intrapreneurship in other suitable candidates.
3. Help to preserve and safeguard sensitive business information
A smart small business owner would be hesitant to share sensitive information about their business with a supervisor who was recently hired externally. Therefore, promoting an employee who has already demonstrated that they can be trusted with insider information reduces the amount of “hiding and dodging” a business owner feels they must do.
4. Cheaper and faster to hire and onboard
When you promote from within, you are almost guaranteed no recruiting costs, no lengthy search, no phased onboarding. This means that as soon as the decision is made, the new supervisor can hit the ground running.
5. Signals opportunity to the rest of the team
When good people notice that there are opportunities for leadership growth, they are more likely to stay and be very engaged. If every leadership role is filled externally, ambitious employees start job-hunting, since they see no future with the business.
6. Lower risk of culture mismatch
Generally, business culture, or corporate culture, is the shared set of values, beliefs, attitudes, and unwritten rules that shape how people act and work together in a company. You already know how your existing team work, how they communicate, and how they handle stress. An external hire is a bit of a gamble as culture goes, no matter how good the interview goes.
7. Facilitates succession planning
Hiring from within helps a business owner to to be more strategic with succession planning. As a matter of fact, it could be the start of succession planning, recognising that it does not only happen at the top.
Some pitfalls facing a new supervisor
Ishmael soon realised that when you are promoted and required to supervise former colleagues, as a new supervisor, you are presented with one of the most difficult workplace transition issues there is.
Also, apart from their daily tasks, there are some pitfalls a new supervisor could face, that could really undermine their success in the role.
1. Mindset shift and imposter feelings
Many new supervisors quietly doubt whether they deserve the role, especially without formal credentials. The need to transition from just performing your day to day tasks, to being able to manage and lead your team as well connect their performance to the wider business priorities, can be overwhelming.
2. The “friend to boss” problem
You’re now managing people who were your peers or friends yesterday. You were lunch buddies or work friends, covering for each other when you were late. Your children exchanged sleepover and birthday gifts. All this has now changed.
3. Resentment from passed-over coworkers
If others wanted the job, or feel they deserved it, you may face quiet, undermining gossip, or a “wait and see if they fail” attitude. This isn’t always about you, it’s often about their own disappointment.
4. Change in your support system
Your support system also changed at the same time. Some of your colleagues who were an integral part of that system now regard you, “the new supervisor” with the suspicion previously reserved only for management.
5. Creating inadvertent performance issues
There is reluctance to give directions or correct unwanted behaviour in someone you were on the same level with a month ago. This leads to letting performance issues slide or failing to manage conflict. This leads to bigger issues later on.
6. Doing the work instead of managing the work
Small businesses often promote their best individual performers. But being great at the job doesn’t mean they know how to delegate, how to coach, or hold others accountable. Many new supervisors keep doing their old tasks themselves because it’s more comfortable than actual supervision.
7. No formal training or management support
Small businesses often can’t (don’t) offer management training.They believe that promoting within takes care of this need. Therefore, the person is thrown in with no framework for handling conflict, feedback or difficult conversations. They’re left to figure it out by trial and error, often at their own expense.
8. Unclear authority from business owner
Sometimes the business owner doesn’t clearly communicate the new supervisor’s authority to the team. This results in the team questioning directives or going over the head of the new supervisor, directly to the owner. This undermines the supervisor before they’ve even started.
9. Being caught in the middle
Supervisors often become the buffer between ownership/management and staff – expected to enforce decisions they didn’t make and absorb complaints from both directions. It’s an emotionally taxing position that’s easy to underestimate.
10. No policy on internal promotion
This is the pitfall of pitfalls. It’s caused by the business owner and leads to most of the hidden dangers described in numbers 1 -9 above. Not to make excuses for the owners, but it is highly unlikely they would have such a policy when they usually don’t have a plan for hiring internally in the first place.
How to manage the pitfalls facing a new supervisor
By now, you, Ishmael and the business owner realise that organisational or business change can be hard generally, but promotions in small businesses take on a life of “hardness” on their own.
So let’s see what can be done to manage the pitfalls faced by a newly promoted employee.
By the business owner
1. Make promoting from within a business strategy
When you do, create a policy and write it down. In this way, both you and the employees will be clear on the proces and be sure what you want.
2. Include training/coaching as part of the process
There are several ways to achieve this. You can arrange training even on a small budget, conduct it inhouse or ask your “big business friend” for a short “understudyship” for your soon-to-be supervisor.
3. Upgrade your own skills
This would make a huge difference in so many areas, including how to promote employees. I can’t stress enough – you can’t grow your small business without growing yourself.
4. Help your new supervisor manage the team’s expectation of their new role
You need to do this as early in the process as possible. In this way, you ensure that both of you earn their respect quickly and the supervisor can get on with building that team you had in mind. So, call a meeting with your team, which you both should attend. At this meeting, make your expectations clear. Allow people to ask questions and you both should give them open and honest answers.
By the new supervisor
1. Address your feelings of being an imposter
When you find yourself in a new space or you’re required to start something new, it can make you feel like a fraud or an imposter. There’s actually a name for it: Imposter Syndrome. But it is important to address it, and early in the process, because it can impact your entire performance.
2. Upgrade your communication and assertiveness skills
These are the skills you will urgently need to convince coworkers to put aside their jealousies, encourage them to become more engaged and work along with you to grow themselves and the business. These include public speaking, listening attentively and good writing skills. In addition, assertiveness skills help you to confidently build trust and mutual respect.
3. Remember your team members are human too
Just because you’re the one who’s been promoted does not mean that you’re the only one who’s going through change. Your team members are also going through a range of emotions, e.g – pride at your success, resentment that it was not them, confusion as to how to treat you. Start with this in mind. Then add empathy for your co-workers.
4. Don’t have a “know it all” attitude
Some newly promoted supervisors appear to have been anointed at the font of “know it all”. You know what I mean…As soon as they are promoted, they begin issuing instructions which are expected to be followed blindly. Don’t you ever display this attitude because it prevents you from getting the very ideas you need to do a good job. Also control your ego, admit when you make a mistake, share how you’re going to fix it and DON’T transfer blame.
5. Set realistic expectations/goals for your team
This is very important. You are the new supervisor. And depending on how much you were prepared for your role, you may lack the required supervisory management skills. This will place you under deep suspicion. Now is NOT the time for you to concentrate too heavily on setting any smart goals. Instead, focus on balancing the goals and expectations of the job and business with the capacity of the team and its individual members.
6. Provide reasonable opportunities for team members to advance
Some new supervisors, usually those with strong feelings of insecurity, are inclined to kick down the ladder that took them to the top. I guess this is one way to maintain the “lonely at the top” status quo, if that’s important to you. But consider the alternative. When your team realizes that you are willing to provide them with real opportunities to advance, their respect for you goes off the scale. Oh! And their productivity increases as well.
7. Deal with problem people and situations quickly and fairly
Your personal friend – the one who picks up your children from school and the one who takes turns at cutting your grass – is giving you the most problems in your new role as supervisor. You are reluctant to deal with them for the above reasons. But all the others are watching the situation play out with bated breaths, and flared nostrils. You must deal with these situations quickly and fairly. Why? This lack of respect coming from such a source has great potential to derail the team and undermine your role.
8. Learn to balance your personal and professional interactions with former peers
Circumstances at work have changed but that does not mean that you should cut off all social activities with your former peers. If you do, you will alienate existing friendships. This in turn may disrupt things at work and lead to tension in relationships generally. You can still go out with them, as long as you keep business things for business hours and personal and fun things for after work hours. Be really strict about this.
9. Set yourself on a path of continuous learning
Continuous learning is the ongoing expansion of knowledge and skill sets. In the role of a new supervisor, setting out on such a path benefits both you and the business. You are engaging in your own personal and professional development, and at the same time, developing new skills and knowledge which will help you to do your job better.
Your next move as a new supervisor…
Relax…breathe out.
Yes, you may be an insider job but I just helped you and your boss out with your big issue…how to manage the pitfalls facing you in your new post.
I gave your boss 4 strategies and shared 9 with you, to help you master the backlash of your new position. You can apply them one-by-one or all at once.
So what are you both going to do now, Ishmael?
Are you going to go back to sleep and pretend that this post did not happen?
Can you continue dreading the very thought of going to work and then coming to work all tensed up?
I say “NO!” You’re smarter than that. Your boss was right when she promoted you.
I’ve given you the information. And I recommend that you act on it. Now!
To your success as a new supervisor…
Lorna Barrow
Lorna Barrow excels at leading small business owners to get the breakthrough they are looking for in their businesses! She unleashes her 25+ years of small business experience and knowledge on your business, which was developed from working with small business across the Caribbean and beyond. This ensures you get the solutions that are right for you and your business...
