Promoted Recently? Avoid These Rookie Mistakes
Some Common Mistakes New Leaders Make When Promoted
Hey, fellow Leader 🚀,
I am Artur, and welcome to my weekly newsletter. I am focusing on topics like Project Management, Innovation, Leadership, and a bit of Entrepreneurship. I am always open to suggestions for new topics. Feel free to reach out to me and share my newsletter if it helps you in any way.
Some time ago, I witnessed a newly appointed team leader make a few mistakes, which triggered the idea for this post. For any rookie, making mistakes is a natural part of the learning process. Leading a team is an ambition many hold for years, and when it materializes, the reality can present difficult contradictions and expectations to manage.
The goal of this article is to explore some common errors that new Leaders might fall into. If you are an experienced leader reading this, feel free to comment with other common mistakes new Leaders make. I am a strong believer that Leadership is a skill that is learned and evolves through hands-on experience, and it is important to be prepared for what is to come.
Power Is An Illusion
In the corporate world, the one true source of decision-making is the person who pays for the project. Everyone else’s authority is delegated through chains of command and aligned with the expectations of the one paying the bills. New Leaders often have the illusion that when they are promoted to “Team Leader”, they can make a lot of changes and will have the last say in any matter. Wrong.
When I was first promoted, I was under the illusion that I was finally in a position to fix things and bring order to the team. I soon started to notice that my management was becoming afraid of me (lol). I was the subject matter expert, and I only got the lead position because they feared the application would suffer if I left the company. In practice, I learned to align myself with my peers and, most importantly, with my upper management. No one wants a Leader going rogue. In fact, I quickly realized I didn’t have much power to begin with. I was just another cog in the machine.
Yes, it’s great to have ideas and the ambition to improve things, and a promotion is just a step closer to implementing that vision. However, until the right level of authority is delegated to them, newly appointed leaders have little say in most matters. They might even be in a “trial period”.
Too Strong a Position On A Matter
Good leader material, wants to protect his or her team and ensure everyone has the best conditions to perform their work. However, it’s highly important not to make too many strong positions early in the career. The typical case is when a colleague is underperforming and the Leader is providing arguments to avoid the inevitable.
Playing the political game is a combination of having the right information and presenting the right arguments. The issue with newly appointed Leaders is that they typically don’t have all the information, and they will learn that some arguments don’t matter at all.
Making too strong a position, and coming out with weak arguments and seeing them dismantled with 2 phrases, it shows the Leader is green. In the example above, if you want to protect that colleague, go ahead, present your arguments. But make sure you don’t get dirt on you. Don’t let it become personal. It is more important to have the right information. I have seen cases where arguments are destroyed because the new Leader wasn’t aware of major episodes related to a story. Go with caution, and try to get the complete picture before setting a strong position on a weak foundation.
Pick Your Battles
You can’t win every fight. When you first step into a leadership position, you’ll start to navigate political waters. It’s important to save your energy for the topics that truly matter and let go of those that have little impact. Many years ago, I worked with someone (let’s call her Marta) who had a naturally confrontational personality. She would fiercely defend her position on anything that didn’t align with her expectations.
Marta could have become a strong leader if she had survived the first few months. Unfortunately, she wasn’t experienced enough and chose the wrong battles to fight. The consequence was a string of conflicts with peers, clients, and even her own management. For some reason, Marta seemed proud of challenging people left and right, until she was “demoted” (aka moved to another team to produce less damage), and eventually fired.
There will always be a bigger fish. Some battles cause friction and can create long-lasting animosity between people. Some of those people might not react in the moment, but they will never forget. Because some leaders play the political game better than others, they only had to wait for the right time and the right battle to push Marta out, along with all the trouble she had created. Of course, this is an extreme scenario. The key takeaway is that you can’t win every battle, and each conflict can have unintended outcomes. With experience, you’ll learn to navigate these situations and mitigate the fallout.
Communicate Smartly
This is an especially important topic for me, as I’ve always had an informal approach to leadership. Once you get promoted, you need to pay close attention to how you say things, especially when reporting problems. You might still be close with your team in the trenches, but your real value comes from how you report on the project’s progress to stakeholders. You should always work to improve the way you communicate, no matter your position.
I’ve seen many new leaders adopt different communication styles. Some want to present themselves as politically savvy, while others try to be informal and easy-going. But if someone is investing 2 million euros in a project, they don’t want an egotistical leader or a “cool guy” managing their money. They want someone smart. Be that person.
Your use of language is the first indicator of intelligence that others will notice, so choose your words carefully to fit the situation. When you’re handling a problem, it’s crucial to communicate calmly and factually. If a leader lets too much emotion seep into their communication, they’re no different from a foot soldier in the trenches. It’s important to gather the facts, see the whole picture, and present solutions instead of showing up empty-handed with a problem.
Don’t Take It Personally
When you’re starting out, you will make mistakes. Everyone does. Impostor syndrome is a very real thing, even for experienced leaders. I’ve often been given projects where I thought, “This is too big for me to handle.” I’m glad and lucky to say that I’ve won far more battles than I’ve lost.
In the beginning, when something doesn’t go your way, you might think it’s your fault or that someone is attacking you. It’s not. It’s important to detach yourself from the role you’re performing. There’s a difference between the Artur who goes to boardgame events and the Artur who has to annoy everyone about their tasks. In my job, I’m performing a role and ensuring everything stays on track. Inevitably, I’ll create discomfort, and people will become less than excited to see me. But that’s my role. It’s not personal.
With experience, as you build your own leadership style, you will learn to manage these situations and distance yourself emotionally. If someone is angry because application X isn’t performing due to Y, and accuses you of being responsible, well, that’s their opinion (and they might be wrong). If they are right, it’s important to learn from it and move on. Most likely, they are attacking the role, not the person. But in the event that they are attacking you personally, it only reveals how small-minded they are. Don’t mind them. Just do your job.
That’s it. If you find this post useful, please share it with your friends or colleagues who might be interested in this topic. If you would like to see a different angle, suggest it in the comments or send me a message.
Cheers,
Artur
All of this is very true, Artur!