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Becoming a Manager: How New Managers Master The Challenges of Leadership

By Linda A. Hill

(Penguin Books, New York, NY. 1993.  ISBN: 0-14-01792)

Reviewed by Matt M. Starcevich Ph.D.,

This book is for those anticipating accepting their first managerial position, those who manage first time managers, human resource professionals responsible for management development and those who are mentors for aspiring young managers. Both the organization and person will gain from the lessons learned.

The author states that, the goal of this book is to provide a forum for new managers to speak for themselves as they learn the art of management. Although we know much about what effective and successful managers are like, we know little about how they become that way. Here the odyssey of nineteen new managers during their first year on the job is recounted. All participants were new sales and marketing managers, fourteen men and five women. Ten were branch managers in a securities firm and nine were sales managers in a computer company. Listening to them, it becomes clear that the transition to manager is not limited to acquiring competencies and building relationship. Rather, it constitutes a profound transformation, as individuals learn to think, feel, and value as managers.

A surprising finding was that "unequivocally, the managers asserted that the most demanding task learning of the first year had to do with the "people challenges." The findings are presented under the four tasks of transformation the new managers had to master:

Learning what it means to be a manager:
What is insightful is that the new managers had a misperception of what it meant to be a manager. "All began by describing management’s rights and privileges, not its duties. They began by stating explicitly that being a manager meant being the boss." They struggled during the first year to reconcile their expectations with the realities of managers work, with the constituencies they would work with; subordinates, superiors, and peers. They had to make sense of complex, often conflicting, and demanding expectations. E.g., Subordiantes expectations included "people managers" while superiors included "integrator", and peers included "negotiators." None of these were in the expectation list of the new manager. The learning was also emotionally unsettling, for the managers had to act as managers before they understood what that role was. It wasn’t until the 4-6 month mark that they stated to see the difference between doer and manager. Evaluating subordinates’ performance was truly the rite of passage for the new managers. As one stated "I had joined a new fraternity," and "Not only was I no longer one of the gang. I was the enemy."

Developing interpersonal judgement:
Building effective relationships with their subordinates was unequivocally the most difficult task the new managers faced. More specifically they had to learn how to establish credibility, build subordinate commitment and lead the group. The second set of lessons the new managers had to learn was how to manage individual subordinates’ performance.

Gaining self-knowledge:
As the year progressed and they could see a new professional self-concept forming, they found themselves asking even more unsettling questions: "Who am I becoming?" They were learning about themselves, one said, not only as "a manager, but as a person." They were acquiring managerial character—personal qualities or attitudes essential to effectively manage people.

Coping with stress and emotion:
As they soon discovered, the stresses were greater and more debilitating than they had imagined. For the first time in their careers many of them faced the possibility of failure. The managers had to learn to cope with four stresses:

The last section focuses on Managing the Transformation.  As a practitioner, coach, and mentor I found this section the most valuable. All the conclusions are against an important backdrop: that you become a manager mainly by on-the-job learning. Yet there are resources and support that can make this learning and transition easier. The second most important teacher was observing and interacting with coworkers: past and current bosses, past and current associates (principally peers).

For bosses, one of the most consistent and troubling findings in this study was that the new managers did not perceive their current bosses to be resources for coping with their first-year challenges. Most saw the current boss as more of a threat then an ally. The individuals to whom the managers most often turned were former peers.

Because "the reward for being a good producer is to be made a manager". This book has wide spread implications for evaluating, selecting, developing, coaching and mentoring new managers. They need a coach, a sounding board to ease this difficult transition. Both human and organization costs can be saved with the lessons learned from this in-depth study of new managers during their first year on the job.

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Contact Matt Starcevich at matt@coachingandmentoring.com
Copyright 1999 Center for Coaching & Mentoring, Inc., update: March 07, 2007