New Supervisors are Often on Their Own!

by Susan Weston, The Susan Weston Company

Picture the bird’s nest with the mama bird nosing the chicks out to try their wings.  Mama knows its time and so out they go!

 

If you’ve been promoted to supervisor or manager, you might have had the same feeling as that chick – thrust into your new role and maybe not quite feeling ready.  You’re not alone!

 

·    58% of new managers receive no training to help them with the transition, according to CareerBuilder

·    76% of employees who made that switch rate their company’s support as fair or poor

·    Once you are actually promoted, 66% of companies use no tools or programs to measure and support your success

 

These numbers really stick out when you consider what we already know from Gallup’s survey of millions of workers – that people leave bosses, not companies!

 

But there are things that you yourself can do to help guarantee your success.  The first is to realize that, as a new supervisor, two critical shifts have occurred:

 

1.  Your perception of the organization and your role in it changes.  Relationships you had with peers will significantly alter!

 

2.  The way you spend your time must change – this is a core shift and may be the most difficult since you were already good at what you were doing.

 

Once you realize the significance of the change – you can go about building the personal skills and making the moves within your own company to guarantee a strong position for you and a positive outcome for your team! 

 

Learn much more on this topic at our FAA Education Conference on October 28.  Plan now to attend the program "Making the Move from Peer to Supervisor"