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Common Pitfalls for Managers

Lesson 3 from: Leadership Skills for New Managers

Cory Caprista

Common Pitfalls for Managers

Lesson 3 from: Leadership Skills for New Managers

Cory Caprista

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Lesson Info

3. Common Pitfalls for Managers

Lesson Info

Common Pitfalls for Managers

Let's talk about common pitfalls. Where do we fall down as managers? So this is a little bit of vulnerability and sharing, which we're gonna practice for the rest of the course. What's a place where you struggle? For me? For example, I have a colleague that constantly complains a lot, and I just don't have the time to coddle her all the time. She's that one person that always has something to say. So that's my pitfall. How do I go about someone like that? Cause most of the time I just like, Kind of avoid it? Don't even wanna deal with it. Do you kinda just avoid this person? At times, no no no, I don't, but that topic I tend to avoid. Okay, so this is really, I would say this is difficult feedback. Cause really what we're talking about there, is there is a consistent pattern that is negative and yet we don't feel like we have the words or the access to talk about it or shift it. Sort of, not that you are a victim but that is a bit of a victim mindset which we all can fall p...

rey to. I fall prey to in my day, I have to catch myself. Oh, do I have power here or no power? And so, this is for all of us, this idea of something's happening, do I have access to do something about it, right? And for you specifically, it's around someone who's complaining a lot, and not knowing how to deal with that, right? I mean, I have confronted it but when it's a constant, I just tend to like, Okay, not today. Kind of not today, I can't even deal with this. It's not gonna change, yeah absolutely. Mine is probably taking time to slow down, because there's so many moving parts throughout our days and ensuring I'm getting the one-on-one time with everyone that I need to, so. Yes. Disease of busy. Yeah, and I would say then obviously slowing down is sort of the goal, but we all are kind of sick, we can get sick with this disease of busy, right, cool. I was just gonna say being bossy versus being a leader. So making people do work versus wanting them to actually do work for you, like inspire them. So are you saying you tend to fall into bossy rather than inspiring? I can be, but I'm like, yeah, you know you need to do this versus them being inspired and wanting to do that. Yeah, and is there, do you notice that there's certain times where you tend to be more bossy than inspiring? I guess when it's busy or when it's like, I'm under pressure and I'm like, yes this needs to be done. Right, so that's, there's two-fold to that, we're gonna get into that. One is, you gotta change your schedule so that there's less frequency of you getting into that space, and two when we get in that space of being overworked, too busy, can we be mindful enough to slow ourselves down and be present and be intentional even when we're depleted? So we can actually expand our ability to deal when we're, to function when we're depleted, but we also need to make choices that don't cause us to be depleted as often. So we're gonna talk about both of those today. That's fantastic. Any last ones? Okay, cool. So let's talk about a few. Saying yes, this is doing too much. Saying yes to everything. Yes I can, yes I can. I'll do service that sounds great. I'll do it, I'll help out, people-pleasing: common pitfall. Say yes to too much and then you don't get to say yes to things that are really critical, that really have leverage, because you said yes to too much elsewhere. And it could be secretly, it could be that we're afraid of the big thing. So if we're afraid of the big thing, we might say yes to the small things and be like, oh I don't have time for the big thing, right? So we gotta watch ourselves. We kinda can be tricky with ourselves, okay? Calendar overload, kinda the same thing. If you look at your calendar and it's planned to 100% of capacity? That's a problem because there are things that come up that are unplanned. Yes, every single week, maybe every day, maybe every hour. So if we're already planned to 100% capacity? We're in trouble, we're in big trouble, okay? So you gotta plan your calendar. Maybe the 80-20 rule is a good idea here. 80% capacity with 20% for unexpected, okay? And we're gonna talk a little bit about what else should go into that calendar maybe that's not in there, that's not blocked. Okay, common pitfall: micromanaging. (grunts) No one likes a micromanager, but what does it mean to micromanage? We're gonna get into that a little bit more. This is a common pitfall. Wanting to control process, control every single thing and not letting people be inspired to do it themselves. Too tactical. Again, this is a safe space for us, right? Ooh tactical, easy, cross it off our to-do list. Strategic or visionary are a little scarier, a little less certain, okay? So people tend, a lot of leaders tend to stay in tactical. Lack of intention, this often just comes out. We haven't stopped and we haven't worked with someone. Or haven't stopped, we don't know how to set an intention that actually connects us to something practical that can help us refocus in a moment when we're off of our intention. So just never having set it helps us be, well, prevents us from being focused on it. And this one is, I would say this is probably every human being. Maybe there's some exceptions. There's always, you know, outliers in this world. But being afraid of tough conversations. Well, it's totally natural to be afraid of tough conversations. And in another of the courses, we're gonna be doing an entire course on feedback, to get into this, okay? But it really comes down to skills and courage, and a few other things we'll train on. But the problem here is that if we let this go, then things don't get corrected, and then behaviors just keep going and keep going, right? We never actually error-correct and get things, we never improve over time, if we avoid tough conversations. So these top three management sins are coming from a data survey that was done by Google. And why it's interesting is, they not only talked about what are the most common sins, but what are the skills of a great manager. And what was cool is it's based on data from them, okay? So we're kinda talked about pitfalls. Here is how they described the top three sins, and this is very useful. Has trouble transitioning from team player to leader. This is kind of all the stuff we talked about, right? But that transition can be really hard, and it can take a lot of time. It doesn't mean that your transition is gonna happen in a day or week. It might take six months, a year to fully transition. I remember when I left my job, I used to work at Twitter. I left my job at Twitter, I was still having dreams about work I had to do up to a year after I'd left that job. Like wake up in the middle of the night being like, Ah I forgot to do a thing, or there's a big project I screwed up. Up to a year. So that to me just shows how long this stuff can linger in our system, right? So if you've been in IC for maybe most of your career, 10 years, 10 years plus, 5 years, then think about how that arc is gonna take time for you to ramp up on the new mindset and the old one to sort of taper. Okay, lacks consistent approach to performance management and career development. Cause this is really about how is this person doing, helping them grow and contribute better, letting them know if they're not doing something well, so that things aren't a surprise. And what people really wanna do is they wanna get better. So if you're not helping people get better in your organization? That's a problem, okay? Cause then they're not getting better, your team's not getting better and then the organization is not getting better. Obviously, you can only control your sphere of influence, but take care of your neighborhood, right? And then we'll work on getting everyone else to take care of their neighborhoods as well. We'll bring them into this course. We'll send them the link, right? Bring them in to do it. Okay, and spends too little time on managing and communicating. It is shocking how much time this takes, to coordinate people, to communicate what the expectations are, to give updates, to check in, to manage and make, help coach them on maybe project or a process they're doing. It takes a phenomenal amount of time, and it's kind of shocking I think that people sometimes are like, oh really? This much time is it takes to do it? Yeah, it really does. It takes a shocking amount of time. So I think for some people, it just is challenging to make that shift in their schedule.

Class Materials

Bonus Materials with Purchase

Cory Caprista - Leadership Skills Workbook

Ratings and Reviews

Mandy Hamilton
 

I absolutely love this course. Cory is such a good speaker/teacher. He seamlessly pulls in useful frameworks and how-to instructions throughout. I highly recommend this program to existing managers or aspiring managers. It will benefit those who have been in leadership for years or those who are just stepping into the role.

Sylvie Leroy
 

Super interesting. Clear explanations on the process to become a manager. Lot of useful information and exercices. Highly comprehensive. Thank you!

Tatie Diallo
 

wow amazing class and content and Cory is making it sounds so easy. Thanks

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