Managing For Dummies®, 3rd Edition

Chapter 21. Ten Tips for New Managers

In This Chapter

• Setting clear goals

• Not playing favorites

• Getting what you reward

• Learning how to delegate

• Communicating with your employees

No matter how much experience a manager has under the belt, every manager was once a new manager. When you're new to management, you may find it difficult to know what tasks are important and what tasks can wait (or what tasks you can ignore altogether). However, becoming an effective manager requires you to separate the should-dos from the don't-have-to-dos. In this chapter, we consider ten tasks that every new manager should do.

Set Clear Goals and Expectations

Your job as a manager is to get big things done in your organization by leveraging the talents, abilities, and brain and muscle power of your employees. In short, to get much of your work done as a manager, you must delegate a lot of work, and you have to be able to rely on the people to whom you delegate it.

When you delegate work to an employee, however, it's not enough to simply make an assignment and hope for the best. You must also set clear goals and expectations for your employees. When employees aren't sure what exactly they're supposed to do and when they're supposed to do it, they can't meet your expectations — whatever they may be. However, when you're crystal clear about what you want your employees to do and when you want it done, your employees can prioritize their own work to ensure that they meet your deadlines. This approach provides a ...