2.142 Train Your New Managers in Under 30 Days

Promoting a brilliant team member into their first leadership role is exciting. It is also where many small businesses stumble. In this episode Karen shares a simple 30 day plan that builds clarity, confidence and momentum for new managers, with an easy runway to 90 days. You will hear practical steps you can use this week, plus simple tools that make leadership feel human and doable. 

You will learn 

• What to cover in Week 1 so expectations are crystal clear 
• How to use one on ones, short learning bursts and immediate feedback to build trust 
• When to hand over the meeting reins and how to coach in the moment 
• A light way to set goals, measures and a steady check in rhythm for Week 4 
• How to extend the first month into a strong 90 day plan without heavy programs 
• Common pitfalls first time managers face and how to avoid them 

Perfect for 
Owners and leaders in small and medium sized businesses, people leaders stepping into management for the first time, and teams that want practical HR support services without the fluff. 

Resources mentioned 

• Leadership charter and values in action: https://www.amplifyhr.com.au/the-value-of-values/ 
• How to give useful feedback: https://www.amplifyhr.com.au/top-tips-for-giving-feedback-to-employees/ 
• Team meeting agenda that works: https://www.amplifyhr.com.au/meetings-that-matter-5-tips-for-high-performing-teams/ 
• Delegation and founder trade offs: https://www.amplifyhr.com.au/the-founders-dilemma-managing-people-vs-growing-the-business/ 
• Setting effective team goals: https://www.amplifyhr.com.au/how-to-set-effective-goals-for-2026 

Work with Amplify HR 
If you would like templates or a short workshop to get your new managers humming, we can help with friendly hr consulting, on demand hr services and leadership development workshops designed for hr for small business and hr for small companies. 

Book a free discovery call
https://meetings.hubspot.com/ronita-fourie 

Get our free eBook packed with practical strategies to attract, engage, and retain top talent. Perfect for business owners and leaders focused on building a thriving team. Download it at amplifyhr.com.au/downloadable/find-grow-keep

Transcript

Welcome to Episode 142, and if you have ever promoted a brilliant team member into a management role and then discovered that they were a dreadful manager, then this episode's for you because one of the reasons why that happens is because we often give people the title of manager, but don't actually give them any skills or support or instruction or training on how to manage people. And that's often because it's time consuming. It can be seen as expensive. 

So in today's episode, we're actually just going to give you a really simple plan to get your new manager confident in that role, so that by the end of this episode, you could have a week by week plan for the 1st 30 days that they're in that role, including what their meeting agendas look like, some quick training modules you or your HR partner can run, and then I'll also explain how you can extend that into a 90 day program, which is still light touch, but they are moving from doing the work and being that brilliant team member to actually leading the work. 

So let's get into what does a 30 day new manager Sprint look like so Week 1? So 0 to 1. This is just setting the foundation. So really our goal here is that we want to give clarity about what does management look like. You know, what is good in our business. 

And the easiest way to do that is the first step is to share a simple leadership charter, and I've talked about this in previous episodes. This is about just creating A1 page document that describes what is leadership around here. How do we show up? What are our values, our behaviours that we expect, what are the management basics that are non-negotiable. Things like having a regular one-on-ones or addressing issues early or demonstrating the values everyday and communicating clearly with our team. And once we have that leadership charter, you know that's a 60 to 90 minute conversation. 

Where we take the new manager through that and enable them to ask questions, but also for you to provide stories that bring the leadership Charter to life. So there's no point of how the leadership Charter is just a document that's emailed. We need to actually explain and give examples on how we're using it and why it's important. OK, Step 2 is defining the role and the outcomes, so we want a role description. I don't mind what you want to call it a success document, a role description, position, description. Everyone calls it something else. It doesn't matter. 

As long as it says this is what you're responsible for, and this is how success will be measured in the next three to six months. So think about what are the results, what are the people, what are the processes that this role is responsible for? 

I keep it really specific, really short position descriptions should not be a laundry list of tasks you want. Maybe a paragraph of context and then you want to get into what are you actually responsible for here? You're no more than eight. Usually we say, you know, 3 to 5. 

Have some roles 5 to 8 clear objectives that you need to achieve and this is how we're going to measure that. Step three, we're covering just the business essentials. So walk through what is the culture that you're trying to build? What's your expectations around decision making with this role? Who decides what? Where do they have room to move and to make those decisions? What things do you have as your non-negotiables that they just cannot make decisions around, for example, safety, behaviour, communication standards, compliance with policies and they should be non-negotiables. But there'll be a whole bunch of other things within their role, their responsibility that they should be able to make the decisions around. And if you have a new manager checklist and sit beside, they'll walk through it so they can see what it's expected across. 

Across those employment basics meetings, performance, compliance, conflict, budget, time management relationships will be, yeah, and that could help people as well to understand the difference. There's a huge difference between being a great team member and being a great manager and you know the way that we can do this is by really just explaining to them, you know, your job is to build the team to get the results and to get the results in a way that increases your people's well being and make someone stay. 

Not easy, and the way that we do that is through this leadership charter and by having really great habits from day one. Yeah, one of those really great habits is to meet with your team members regularly and listen. 

And the second is to address any issues early and kindly and offer to practise with them doing that over the next month because it's a skill that needs to be developed. So your deliverable by the end of week one is having a written summary from the new manager. And just say look, just answer me three questions. One in your words, what does good look like good leadership look like? Second, what are the three outcomes you want to own in the next quarter and 3rd what decisions do you feel are yours to make? What are you still unsure about? What do you need to escalate, because if you can just get them just to write that out and discuss with you that just make sure from you know, week one you are on the same page. 

So week two is about observation and learning, so we want them to be able to understand the team, the work, your customers. There should be shadowing and listening. So ask your manager to sit in on key workflows or customer moments, join team meetings and customer calls and handovers. You know, meet every team member one-on-one and ask about their role, their strengths, their challenges, their barriers and you know, really introducing those people basics in short bursts. So things like how do I approve leave? Should I approve leave, you know, just those really small things that when you've been a manager for a long time, you forget that there was a first time that you did that and you didn't know what to do.  

OK, so you can have like three 30 minute sessions. You know, one might be how to run a one-on-one effectively. The second might be how to give feedback that's positive and constructive, and the third might be how to escalate issues or when you should ask for help and as part of that you want to make sure you have one-on-one templates for your new manager. Unfortunately I've seen this many times where someone says to the new manager you need to make sure you're doing one-on-ones. And they say, oh, I'm absolutely doing one-on-ones and then six months later there's this huge divide between what their team members know or what they should know. And that's because the one-on-ones just become work in progress. So we want to make sure that we do have a template for that one-on-one. 

Starting with a genuine check in, how are you, you know? And asking just simple questions, things like, you know, what's been your biggest win, what's getting in your way right now? You know what goals are you really excited about? What are your priorities for this week? What do you need from me? You know, just having questions that they can use and learn how to listen to the answers. That is really important, so the next thing is obviously you also need to be giving them feedback, so they say what that's good look like. So you know when you were in that customer meeting, here's what I noticed or you know, I was really confident when I saw you do X. 

So it's just making sure that you're giving them feedback as well. So by the end of week two, you should be giving them a little summary. You know, what have you seen working really well? What do you think's got some improvement to happen and ask them, you know, are they seeing anything that they're unsure about in the standards or the processes? 

So week three, we really want to get them from, you know, shadowing and watching to really leading. So we want to give them the meeting reins. We want to ask them to run the next team meeting to do those regular one-on-ones we want them to sit in quietly, then give feedback. And give them a team meeting agenda that they can use and again really simple stuff. But just if you have consistency with this, it's going to save you so many problems down the track. Inconsistency. It's one of the biggest issues when it comes to culture and organisations. 

So having a couple of dot points on a team agenda, you know, quick wins, positive news, what have you got to give me this week? You know, here's the update of our team goals. Here's our key numbers. Here's a great customer story. You know, what are the blockers? What do we need from each other? And what are our actions? 

And we also want to start thinking about having our managers practise difficult conversations and you know we can just do like 20 minute role plays on different scenarios. So one might be around underperformance, another might be around behavioural attitude concerns. 

Another could be if an employee starts pushing back on requests, so just being able to practise that whether it's with you as their manager or with your HR partner really gets them set up and confident and more likely to address issues rather than just letting them go on fester. So make sure that you also have one-on-ones with them so it could be fortnightly and then just debriefing on whatever the tricky conversations they've had going back, talking about that leadership charter and again, giving them examples of what you've seen working really well. So by the end of that week three, you should have two or three team priorities that they're proposing that need to happen and that you agree on and you want to keep this small and achievable. 

So week four, we want them to own the outcomes, get set up for the next 60 days. So this is where they're stepping into ownership. So setting goals and getting clarity and accountability. So you want them to have maybe three or four goals for the next quarter. Each goal needs a measure. It needs who's owning it is it them? Is it a member of the team? And what's the check in rhythm on that? And, you know, it might be at this point that you start talking about the idea of situational leadership and get them to start thinking about how to flex their leadership style to each person and each task. 

It might be starting to understand their comfort with delegation and do they need to Start learning a little bit more about how to delegate effectively and why we delegate. So it might be, you know, asking the manager. You know, tell me like, how would you rate yourself on your management skills in terms of your comfort level? So not your skill level because it's hard for people to say I'm terrible at this, but what's your comfort level with giving feedback? What's your comfort level with having those difficult conversations? You know, what do we need to focus on? So that you can have that as your deliverable by the end of Week 4 to go. OK, this is the managers development plan over the next one to three months. So that's our 30 day sprint.  

Now we want to get momentum. So we want to keep it going without overcomplicating it. So days 30 to 60 might be around communication and confidence. So focusing on running those effective one-on-ones at team meetings there is nothing a manager can do that makes more of an impact than doing these effectively. And that means active listening. Having those difficult conversations where we need them. So making sure that that's a focus. 

And then it could be from days 60 to 90 is really deepening in that ownership and results. So really getting into goal, setting accountability, delegation, these are fantastic skills to have really early on in your management role and we want them to start identifying the next improvement area. So again, maybe you go back to your leadership charter and say, OK, rate your comfort level on these, where do we need to focus. 

For the next three to six months after this, you know what monthly learning topics do we need to look at? Do we need a mentor? Do we need some short leadership training and just keeping that rhythm focused on leadership growth and not just the job that they're doing? 

And let's not forget informal learning things like podcasts, reading articles, webinars. You know, I think that everyone should be encouraged to learn at least one thing a month, and the best way to know if that's happening is to ask them. You know, so you're a manager. So part of our leadership charter is continual learning. So for this month, what are you going to do? OK, I'm going to listen to this podcast. OK. At the end of the month, guess what you're going to do. How was the podcast? What did you learn? What can you apply? And hey, how could I use that as well? That's how we learn. 

So the next thing is just with that 90 days is to consider a skip-level meeting. So this is where the the manager’s manager meets with the team to get direct feedback and just to check in you know, how are things going, it's a light way to lift management quality. 

Without heavy programmes, without having complaints coming through, enabling things to fester, and it gives that managers manager often really great information just on what's happening on the ground as well and it makes the employees feel really good and valued. 

And increases involvement and belonging in the organisation so you know the thing to think about is how do you get your leadership charter in place? How do you get your new manager checklist to guide that coaching of spot gaps early because things like those employment basics, leave types, entitlements, probation reviews super important as is effective team management, one-on-ones, quarterly check ins, performance standards. 

And then we've got our leadership skills. So running effective meetings, communicating clearly, presenting ideas, resolving conflict, and then we've got the actual job, the things like budget awareness compliance. You know, the actual accountability of things that we need. And of course, we want to make sure that our managers are always personally developing,  

Now, what happens if you do all of this and your new manager is still struggling? And sometimes that's because they hesitate. They may be worried about being too directive, especially if they were former colleagues, that they're now managing, which means they may avoid feedback because they want to be liked. 

So the way that we do that is to just normalise it, let them know that you managers will almost always feel awkward that growth can feel really uncomfortable and rehearse. So those you know, little role plays, although they might feel awkward. They really do make a big difference. And the other thing is to really talk about your values, you know, so yes, you're achieving what you need to achieve is really important. We need you to hit those goals, but you need to do it in the right way. So to make sure that company values stay at the top and then thinking about, you know, how do we make sure that we're keeping in contact as well. So what's our own check in cycle as manager to top level manager and you can use your new manager checklist to make sure that you are doing those things in your coaching toolkit. 

So just having a think about what are those tools that you need, so you need the leadership Charter where you should have a leadership charter, you should have a new manager checklist, you should have a one-on-one agenda, and a team meeting agenda and then the other thing that you can do is just give them some lines that they can use when they get stuck. You know? So so it could be they're not sure how to address a performance issue with someone. 

Then just starting with those open questions. “So can I share something with you that I think will help” or “you know the impact of X is Y”, you know, “what support do you need from me?”  You know, these are just simple sentences that the more that a manager can learn to use them and the more likely they are to be comfortable in those uncomfortable situations, so you do not need a complicated program for new managers, but you do need a process that creates clarity, builds confidence and develops the right habits and we need. 

To start that from Week 1, so week 1 Foundations week two is observation and learning. Week 3 is then leading the room, and week four is owning the outcomes, and then we're extending it out to our 90 day plan. And then we're keeping our new manager focus using our checklist so that they know this is how we need to manage here.  

So if you would like to have something like this package for your business with templates and a short manager workshop, you can book a free strategy session with us at Amplify HR. 

And we can map your 30 day plan and the first quarter road map and there's a link to how to do that in the show notes. 

And if you've received value from this episode, I would love it if you could leave a rating or a review at Apple Podcasts or Spotify. So someone else can also find these episodes to help with their Business episodes are released on Monday, so click subscribe and you'll be notified of when that's available. Thanks so much for joining me if you have any questions, comments or ideas for future episodes, head on over to the website amplifyhr.com.au or connect with me on LinkedIn and we can start a conversation