Written by Nicola Gater | 18th February 2025
Becoming a manager for the first time is an exciting, but sometimes daunting career milestone. The transition from being an employee to leading a team is a big step, and training to develop the role of a manager is crucial to ensure this happens smoothly.
Many managers find themselves in leadership roles without any formal training – they’re essentially “accidental managers”, who are high performers but lack the people skills to lead a team. This not only has a detrimental impact on the managers themselves, who might feel in over their head or anxious, but it can also impact their team, the wider office culture and the business.
New managers may also be confused about whether they are still “one of them” and can feel uncomfortable if they are now managing their peers and setting boundaries.
These are just two reasons why employers who are promoting a team member to a leadership position should make it a priority to identify any training needs and ensure they are met. We should never assume that someone good at their technical role and deserving of career progression, will automatically be a good people manager.
Here’s a look at the role of a manager in more detail, including how to avoid common mistakes and why leadership training is essential.
The role of a manager
Any line manager, whether they are experienced or new to the role, should understand their key responsibilities and know how to put them into practice. This includes:
Setting goals and expectations
Setting goals and expectations is essential to keep employees on track, engaged and motivated – people with a sense of direction are likely to perform well. It is a manager’s responsibility to agree these with their employee.
Goals should be structured so they are easy to understand and easy to measure progress, they should be relevant to wider business goals, be motivating and a little challenging, and have clear timescales. Agreeing these goals mean both manager and employee know what is expected and can agree early on any support that might be needed to help the employee achieve them. Managers should also communicate clearly the procedures that might apply if the goals and performance standards aren’t met.
Delegation and workload management
Being a manager often means far less “doing” and more delegation. A mistake managers often make is micro-managing when starting to delegate because they believe that it is quicker and easier to do a task themselves.
The manager’s role and performance measures will need redefining, so it is clear to all that they have the time and space in their day to be a manager, rather than thinking that team leadership is just a small extra bit to bolt on to their previous job.
Encourage your managers to resist the desire to return to their old role, while trying to be a manager. Help them accept the role of a manager is to develop their team to work effectively without intervention.
This goes for workload management too. Managers need to be able to assess their own tasks and responsibilities and help their employees to manage their workloads. Our delegation training module covers this and a structured approach to delegating effectively.
Performance management and giving feedback
A fundamental part of every manager’s job role is to manage the performance of their team, which as well as motivating, recognising and praising good performance, will mean having difficult conversations around poor performance.
Not dealing with underperformance quickly sends the wrong message to employees – this behaviour may be seen as acceptable by the wider team. Managers need to be able to give constructive feedback and set measurable targets to improve, sometimes through a formal Performance Improvement Plan, that have clear consequences if not met.
Managers can approach the subject informally, as a casual chat with an employee might be all it takes to get them back on track. However, if there is not sufficient improvement, managers need to know, and be comfortable implementing, the process of raising this formally and issuing appropriate sanctions through warnings and ultimately dismissal.
Our performance management training covers the fundamentals of setting standards, measuring performance, recognising poor performance and resolving issues through informal and formal methods. Managers have the chance to learn theory and practice using the tips and techniques covered.
Supporting and developing team members
It is the role of a manager to be supportive. Supportive managers can be the difference between keeping and losing your best employees – after all, over two thirds (67%) of UK workers have quit or considered quitting their job due to poor management. The manager-employee relationship is central to the employee experience, to their likelihood for success in their roles, and ultimately to the success of your business.
Managers should do their best to nurture, develop, engage and retain staff. Ways to do this include creating open lines of communication and feedback with employees, recognising and rewarding great performance, and actively supporting their learning and development.
Employees will be more committed and satisfied at work if they have a manager they can trust, who genuinely cares about them and takes time to listen.
Not everyone is striving for promotion, but it’s important to consider what employees want in terms of career development through regular personal development discussions. Not every employee will strive to become a manager, but they may feel stuck in a job because they aren’t aware of how else they can progress. Or they may be keen to learn a new skill but be afraid to ask for the training. It’s important managers can confidently work with employees on a development plan and consider the training or mentoring they need to reach their goals.
Managing conflict and difficult conversations
Difficult conversations are an unfortunate part of the role of managers. Tackling negative or sensitive issues can be critical to managing performance, promoting attendance and improving your team culture.
Avoiding them can be a costly mistake as unresolved problems can turn into full blown conflicts or create serious dysfunction within your team.
Managers should be able to control difficult situations, especially if things get heated, and be able to agree a way forward. That means focusing on employee behaviour, remaining objective and non-judgemental.
Managers need to be able to plan for how they will tackle a difficult situation, give appropriate feedback and set clear actions. Our managing difficult conversations training course covers this as well as a feedback model managers can follow.
Managers as guardians of culture
Managers have a direct effect on your teams’ attitudes and behaviour, as well as being drivers of cultural change, which is why they could be described as ‘guardians’ or ‘keepers of culture.
Manager behaviour sets an example, and you can strengthen business culture by ensuring that their actions line up with the business’ values. How do they treat others? How do they make decisions? Are they on time for meetings? Is there open, two-way communication between them and employees? Are they actively listening to employees?
By setting a good example, they are encouraging the team to adopt the culture of the organisation by behaving in a similar way.
Trust is arguably at the centre of a great culture and of the role of a manager is to create that sense of trust with employees. Managers should be transparent with their employees, share ideas and be open to feedback.
Essential skills for new managers
“Leader” and “manager” are often used interchangeably, but there are actually quite a few differences between leadership skills and management skills.
To make it more confusing, many effective leaders will possess many of the same skills that make a successful manager, and vice versa. So, these lines do blur.
Through their behaviour and interactions, leaders inspire people to follow them and the example they are setting.
Key management skills include communication and active listening, decision making and problem solving. Leadership skills overlap here. While managers need to be able to communicate direction and feedback, leaders focus more on encouragement and empowerment, they need to be good listeners and know how to coach people to find answers, not just direct them.
Emotional intelligence is another leadership skill managers should have, which means that they can empathise with others, establish trust and be able to motivate employees as a result.
Building credibility as a manager
New managers often find it challenging to establish authority without creating any resistance among their team members, especially if they’ve been promoted from being a part of the team to managing that same team.
Some make the mistake of still trying to be “one of the team” rather than a leader. A study by University of Reading found that 90% of first-time managers struggle with setting boundaries with employees, especially when they’d previously been friends. However some can go too far the other way, and try to establish authority by being overly directive and setting too many new rules that the team don’t see the benefit of.
If managers don’t set healthy boundaries, they might find that they run into accusations of unfairness from employees who aren’t their friends, burnout as they struggle to manage two types of relationship and extra work as they try to do their job as a manager without hurting anyone’s feelings or causing friction with their friends.
To build credibility and establish respect early on, it’s important to be as open and honest as possible. Managers can build trust by sharing their thought process and reasoning behind decisions and actively listen to their team’s input.
Why training is essential
Having effective managers is a vital step in retaining talent in your business, and investment in leadership development is a big part of this.
Training should be ongoing, flexible and in the format they prefer, for example one-to-one coaching sessions or regular online workshops. A mentoring programme may also help your new managers benefit from the knowledge and support your senior managers and established leaders can offer. Or guided coaching to increase collaboration and creativity.
A good starting point is our course, the Roles and Responsibilities of a Manager, which covers the transition from team member to manager, giving them an overview of all areas of management to help them develop their confidence and capability to excel in their role.
Managers will leave with an understanding of their responsibilities, their management style, and how to self-assess and action plan.
Start your investment in management training and sign up for our course – get in touch with our team at info@realityhr.co.uk to learn more.