THE

First-Time
Managers
HANDBOOK
by Samantha Campbell

THE FIRST-TIME MANAGER HANDBOOK | Page 1

Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1 How to prepare for your new role. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
CHAPTER 2 The 7 skills you need to be successful as a manager. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
CHAPTER 3 How to manage friends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
CHAPTER 4 How to deal with disciplinary situations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
CHAPTER 5 How to deal with managerial stress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
CHAPTER 6 Building a strong team. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
CHAPTER 7 Driving your team to success . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
CHAPTER 8 Recommended management books and blogs you should read . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
CHAPTER 9 Recommended tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
CHAPTER 10 Management is a tough balancing act. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
BONUS Advice from successful leaders . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
“Congratulations. You’ve just
been promoted to manager!”
Sounds like a dream come true, right?

That is, until all of a sudden you’re faced with decisions and
duties and maybe even conflicts you never had to face before.
Being a manager is an amazing opportunity, but it also requires
skills and abilities that weren’t demanded from you before you
were promoted.

This ebook will cover the skills a new manager will need, as
well as helpful tips on some of the challenging situations that
you will face. It will give you a better understanding of both
what to expect and what you need to do, and actionable advice
you can start on today.
THE FIRST-TIME MANAGER HANDBOOK | Page 2
CHAPTER 1
How to prepare for your new role
Here you are, a new manager. Did you know that only 15% of first-time managers get any training?
That 59% felt that support and help for their new position was not sufficient?

In light of that, the best first advice we can give you is simple: find a mentor or role model.

We’ll be mentioning the concept of a mentor throughout this ebook, and there’s good reason for
that. No book is going to have the perfect advice for your situation. No article will cover all the
bases. Find a mentor in your industry, your region, or your actual company if possible. They’ll
have had specific experiences that you can learn from. No need to reinvent the wheel.

It’s also a good idea to prepare in a few other ways:

• Set personal goals. What do you want out of this new job? What do you hope to achieve? What
do you hope your team will achieve? Define what goals you want to accomplish.

• Educate yourself. We’ll talk briefly about some books you ought to read, but look online or
for classes in your area that talk about management topics. Learn more about the different
departments that you’ll be managing. Get to know the employees you’ll be managing.

• Clarify expectations. Discuss with your boss what they are expecting to see from you. Be sure
that you understand. Compare that with your goals. Are you on the same page?

• Be professional. Develop a professional persona both in your behavior, language, and dress.

People follow as they are led. Prepare your team to be the best by preparing yourself in the same way.

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CHAPTER 2
The 7 skills you need to be successful
as a manager
Some of what you need as a manager will be innate. There’s likely a reason you were chosen to
be a manager.

There are other skills, however, you will need to learn and build. Even your natural gifts have to be
strengthened.

1. You have to know how to get people to

respect you.
This heading could have been phrased differently. It could
have said that you have to get people to like you. But
being respected is more important than being liked. Some
employees like ineffectual managers for all the wrong
reasons.

According to Psychology Today, the steps to gaining respect

are simple:

• Respect yourself. Your own mental health and self-

control are the foundation of others respecting you. If people see you don’t respect yourself in
your behavior or how you talk about yourself, they will not respect you, either.

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 • It’s not about being nice. Feeling obligated to be nice leaves you feeling guilty. Nice people
aren’t always respected. Instead of shallow niceness, be respectful of all people even in difficult
situations.

• Don’t try to please everyone. You can’t please everyone, and you can’t please anyone all of the
time. Your goal as a manager isn’t to please people, but to lead them so that their benefit is your
concern and not whether they’re pleased about difficult decisions in the moment.

• Learn to say no. You can NOT say yes all of the time. Say no. Say it firmly, sincerely, kindly, but say
it. Let those you manage learn to do the task or live with the outcome of decisions they’ve made.

• Their feelings aren’t your fault. Understand that each person you manage is responsible for
their feelings. The decisions you make should be made for good managerial reasons, not to
deflect or create certain types of feelings in people.

In time, if you are consistent and honest about how you deal with the team you manage, people will
respect you for being fair and reliable. It is hard to respect someone who is easily manipulated because
they are overly concerned with feelings of being liked. Your job is to lead, not be liked. Sometimes they
are the same, sometimes they aren’t.

2. You have to be organized.

Your ability to be organized is crucial. Disorganization leads to wasted time, lost productivity, and
frustration in your team. Your bottom line will also take a hit.

We’ll cover a list of tools later in the article that will help with organization, but no tool will replace a habit
of disorganization. Tools don’t solve root problems.

• Make a habit of writing things down. Writing helps you retain information. It also means you’re
thinking purposefully about what needs to be done.

• Be goal oriented. Goals have a way of lining up

action and helping you shed what isn’t important to
the goal. With goals, peripheral distractions fall away.

• Practice optimism. A can-do attitude makes being

organized valuable. A negative attitude thrives in “why
bother” disorganization.

• Give detail its rightful place. Pay attention to

detail...but forget about being perfect. You can avoid
sloppiness without being imprisoned by a fear of
making mistakes.

• Use lists wisely. Make to-do lists, but have a system

to purge them. If a to-do item never gets done and
you move it from list to list, did it ever really need to
be done?

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 • Avoid procrastination. Do the hard things right away. The more difficult a task is, the more it
should be done when you know you have the most energy.

3. Y ou must understand the value of collaboration.

Your team needs to be able to work together as a team. If they remain autonomous units who refuse to
work together, you will be trying to herd cats to get anything done.

To encourage collaboration among your team:

• C
 larify the goal. Know what you want accomplished, and
communicate that to your team.

• H
 elp them stay on task. Don’t micromanage, but provide
boundaries so your team can be creative within the
boundaries without veering off course. These might be time
constraints, tools or equipment limitations, periodic status
updates, and so on.

• M
 ake communication safe. For a team to collaborate
well, everyone needs to feel they are free to share opinions
without censure or ridicule.

Successful collaboration gives your team confidence and a chance to exercise their own problem-
solving skills.

4. You must be able to motivate people.

Motivating people is the difference between dragging a horse behind a cart, and a horse pulling the cart.
When your team is motivated, all energy is focused on problem solving, collaboration, and forward
motion. No energy is wasted on begging, pleading, and cajoling people just to get the bare minimum
productivity out of them.

To motivate people:

• Stop bribing people. Rewards work, but mostly they make people work for...more rewards. The
rewards stop, so do the people.

• Make them care. People are motivated when they feel passionate or care about the work. Show
them why their work matters. Show them how they are making a difference.

• Make note of progress. Be able to spot progress your team is making, and make sure they know.

Here’s the catch: you must be able to motivate yourself, first. Unmotivated managers aren’t great at
motivating their team.

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5. Y ou must have critical thinking skills as well as emotional intelligence.
Emotional intelligence is, according to Psychology Today, the “ability to identify and manage your own
emotions and the emotions of others.”

Emotional intelligence includes:

• Being aware of your own, and other’s, emotions.

• Controlling and harnessing those emotions in a productive, problem-solving direction.

• Regulating those emotions to keep them from destructive excess in either direction.

Without emotional intelligence, much of what is driving

or influencing the relationships and lives of your team will
be a mystery to you. The work place isn’t void of emotion.
Remember, emotion is part of what you use to motivate
people.

However, you can’t reside only on emotion.

Emotional intelligence is important because you’re leading

people, but critical thinking skills are needed for identifying
and solving problems.

Can you control emotion and make decisions to solve difficult

problems that might create negative emotions in those you
manage? Critical thinking includes:

• The ability to identify and analyze an existing problem.

• The ability to gather and interpret data relating to the problem.

• Determining a cause of action that solves the problem with the best result for your business.

• Communicating to your team that plan of action and why it’s the right one.

6. You must have communication skills.

Endless books have been written about how to be a better communicator. As a manager, you’ll never
stop working at improving your communication. Absolutely everything you do has a communication
component.

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According to the Leader Communicator blog, there are five skills you must master:

1. Clarify the context. Every person on your team comes to work with their own context from their
upbringing, current situation, family life, and experiences. When everyone is listening through their
own context, they are all hearing something different when you communicate. As a manager, you
have to work on creating a shared vision, a big picture. You might have to explain or describe it
from several different angles to cut through all the contexts in the room.

2. Communicate to the individual. Even when you’re talking to the team, be sure everyone
understands what’s in it for them, and why they should care.

3. Repeat, and often. It’s easy, particularly when you’re busy, to have a checklist mentality. You
communicated something important once, it’s checked off, and now you move on, right? Nope.
You have to communicate the same thing multiple
times in multiple ways. If you sent an email, bring it
up again in a meeting. If you hung up a poster in the
break room, remind your team at the start of a shift.
We have to hear things multiple times to remember
and process information.

4. Listen. When you put information out to your

team, you need to listen back. You need to check to
make sure your team understands what you were
communicating. Find ways to ask questions that get
past team members who say they understand when
they don’t but are unwilling to admit it, such as
having them repeat to you what you have said in their
own words.

5. Provide action. Communication without a call to action is monotonous. Not all that you have to
say to your team will have a call to action, but try to find something. Put into action what we hear
helps cement it in our mind.

7. You must know your industry.

Every industry requires different management skills. What you need to manage a restaurant is different
than what you need to manage a retail store.

This means you’re driven to keep learning. It means you’re self-motivated to pay attention to industry
trends through training, conferences, and publications. It means you take every opportunity to learn from
those who have been in the industry longer than you, or from your own boss.

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CHAPTER 3
How to manage friends
Everyone needs friends at work. It’s a miserable place to be if you have none.

Unfortunately, the challenges of being a manager of a friend make it an easy way to lose your friend. 60%
of first-time managers say that transitioning from being friends and co-workers to being the manager is
the most challenging hurdle.

1. Be fair to everyone. The first few times will be the most difficult, depending on whether or not
your friend understands the work relationship has changed, but you must be fair in dealing with
everyone on the team and not show favoritism towards your friend. This is tricky; sometimes it’s
just as easy to be harder on your friends in order to prove you aren’t showing favor to them.

2. Use documentation. It’s always a good idea to document the good and the bad, but it’s
especially so when you have friends on your team. Should anyone say you are showing favoritism,
you will want the documentation to show that you are following policies fairly.

3. Lose old grudges. Get rid of the tendency to use office cliques, gossip, and grudges that you
might have been exposed to or participated in as an employee against any team member you are
now managing. As a manager, you need to start fresh with everyone. Avoid asking your friends for
inside information on other team members.

4. Wear the uniform. While you may not have an actual uniform, remember that when you are on
the job, you are wearing the manager “uniform” and not the friend “uniform.”

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 5. Compartmentalize. Even when you’re “off the job” you must be careful to not talk about work or
team members if you are hanging around with your office friends on your personal time.
Work gossip and complaints are inappropriate conversations with your friend as long as you are
the manager.

6. Accept change. In most cases, your friendships will change. Some will cool off, some will end.
Your previous friendship has most likely ended as you know it and you must accept that as the
manager. Don’t expect people to treat you the same in the break room or the hallway. You’re the
boss, not the buddy.

7. Be friendly. You can still be friendly. You don’t have to close off from everyone. Just be aware of
your position and consider having a meeting right away to address concerns that your friends
might have and reassure everyone that your door is open.

8. Get a mentor. If possible, find a manager or other leader who can help you as you navigate what
will be a tricky time of learning and transition. You can’t go to your friends for advice or help; you
need to look up the chain now.

The good news? As you climb the management ladder, this challenge of managing friends that you’ll face
as a new manager becomes less of an issue.

You’re
awesome!

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CHAPTER 4
How to deal with disciplinary situations
Taking disciplinary action against an employee is no small thing. The absolute first thing you have to do is
understand what the situation actually is.

Problems are going to come to you in different ways. Other employees will come and tell you about
something. You’ll notice negative changes in productivity or sales. Customer complaints pop up. You see
something happen first hand.

Know what the problem truly is first, so you know what disciplinary action is called for according to
the employee handbook or company rules. Then, determine what approach you are to take based on
those rules.

Let’s take a look at a few unpleasant aspects of employee discipline.

Identify Problem Employees

Problem employees can be divided into six different types according to Entrepreneur magazine:

• The Victim. They have no accountability for their actions. They view everything as happening to
them, and that they have no control over their life or actions. You must clarify their accountability,
that they are responsible for their actions no matter what situation they are in.

• The Hisser. Like a snake, this person seems to lie in wait and then lash out. They tend to rant and
are provoked without warning. Unless this person cares about how their behavior is affecting
others and agrees to make changes, they will have to move on.

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 • The Negative. For this person, everything is negative. Any changes, any ideas, any new policies
or possibilities are quickly made into a negative. They can bring everyone down. As a manager,
this person can be valuable in terms of being a devil’s advocate (great in collaboration!). You must
work with them on how they view and accept change, and you should avoid putting them in any
leadership role unless they are able to control their negativity reliably.

• The Ghost. This person is constantly absent. They always have a reason for not being present
at work or being willing to participate in projects. When there’s work to do, the ghost is gone. As
a manager, you need to be direct. Speak frankly; perhaps this isn’t the job for them. If they don’t
change their behavior, they need to find a job that’s a better fit.

• The Narcissist. This person is never part of a team. They care only about themselves in all
situations. Change is difficult for a narcissist, but if they are extremely talented, you may want to
find a way to turn that self-preservation and self-motivation into an asset for your business.

• The Einstein. This person is smart, knows it, and wants to make sure everyone else knows it.
Their smarts are an asset, but the arrogance that goes with it, is not. You’ll need to talk to this
person, and try to guide them to use their intelligence to build and encourage others instead of
making them feel like less.

It’s valuable to identify which type of problem employee you’re dealing with. Most employees aren’t
problem employees, but if they are, you need to deal with them in the right way for the the issue they
exhibit, and also be aware that you can’t let the behavior drag on. For problem employees, there must be
a resolution (even if it is firing them) or the whole team suffers.

Disciplinary Actions
Your company’s employee handbook will outline what kind of disciplinary action to take in different
situations, but there are a few methods that you’ll likely deal with.

Writing people up.

Documentation is crucial as a manager, both for good behavior as well as bad. Legal considerations
(which vary in different states) require that you document employee interactions before you take further
steps that may lead to firing.

What should you document?

• Repeated or excessive tardiness or absence.

• Poor job performance or outright incompetence.

• Failure or refusal to comply with company policy.

• Violence or threats of violence.

• Sexual harassment complaints.

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 • Discrimination.

• Proven drug use or drunkenness while on the job.

Don’t forget to document when an employee, even (or especially) a problem employee, does something
good. If you don’t, it may seem as if you only document the bad and it might seem like you are picking on
or discriminating against an employee.

When writing an employee up:

• Be consistent. Follow your policies equally for everyone. If you write up one employee for being
tardy, you must do it for all employees.

• Be specific. State what happened specifically. Don’t simply write “employee was late”; note how
late and on what date. Note the reason or communication you had with the employee to show
that the employee knew you had a problem with what happened.

• Be factual. Avoid inserting your own emotional feelings or conjecture about what happened.
State the proven facts clearly. Note what policies were violated. Note the date and time it
happened, and any other information of that nature.

• Note consequences. Write down what will happen to the employee if the behavior continues,
according to your policies. Note that you’ve informed the employee of these consequences
according to what your policies dictate.

• Have the employee sign and date the write-up. The document is going in his or her personnel
file. If the employee will not sign it, write that up, too.

• Allow for response. Let the employee respond in writing for their own file.

Firing an employee.

1. Firing an employee isn’t a light matter. Except in

a few situations (zero-tolerance policies as outlined
in your employee handbook), it is a last step in the
discipline process. If you’re going to fire someone, you
need to do it correctly to protect your business, other
employees, yourself, and even the person being fired.

2. Be sure your documentation is in place. Don’t open

yourself up for legal issues.

3. Rely on that documentation, not your emotions.

Follow your discipline process!

4. Plan ahead for when the firing occurs. The employee may have to clean out their desk, locker,
or office. They have to walk through the building. There are HR concerns to consider. Don’t fire
someone and then make them sit there as you figure out the plan.

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5. Have someone present. Whether another manager, your boss, or someone from HR, have
another person there to witness the firing so that accusations can’t be made against you.

6. Be direct. Don’t be cruel and talk around the issue. Being gentle and direct is the kindest thing
you can do to the person you are firing. If you followed the discipline process and rules in the
employee handbook, they shouldn’t be surprised.

7. Don’t argue. Getting fired is traumatic. Don’t argue with the person being fired, no matter how
they react. Stay calm and on point. Let them vent if they need to, but don’t engage.

8. Don’t let guilt control you. You might feel guilty or bad about the situation depending on how
the person reactions. Don’t make promises to help or do something to alleviate the moment.

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CHAPTER 5
How to deal with managerial stress
The workplace is full of stress. A study found that 80% of workers feel stress on the job, and half admit
they need help managing that stress. Some of that stress leads to actual physical pain, with 62% feeling
neck pain.

Your employees will feel stress, and you will have your own workplace stress in addition to that which
you pick up managing those employees. You must find methods to manage it or you’ll start dragging the
effects of that stress into your personal life.

According to Forbes, there are a few key methods that work:

• Reassess your perspective. Some of what you feel stressed about isn’t the reality of the
situation. You might be reading into what’s happening, or assigning emotions to it that aren’t
necessary. Not everything is a crises, even if it feels that way. Learn to step back, control how
you feel, and logically look at whatever situation is overwhelming you. Is it as bad or impossible as
you feel?

• Block and control your time. If you let continual crises or employees drag you around, your time
is never your own. You are always on a wheel, never catching up. Set aside a regular period of time
during the day or week in which you do not schedule meetings, calls, or any other interruptions.
Too often you feel stressed because you’re not getting things done and they hang over your head.
Use this time to catch up. You’ll feel better.

• Exercise, and pay attention to the physical. Staying healthy with exercise, diet, and drinking
water is not just a trite admonition. Your physical health has a direct impact on how you react and
manage stressful situations.

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• Find a support network. As a new manager, your work friends (your old support network)
aren’t people you can turn to with your management struggles. Find other managers, mentors,
or people outside of work, that can listen and offer meaningful support and advice. You need
someone to talk to. As a manager, you will be hearing about employee problems regularly. You
need the same ability to turn to someone to talk to.

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CHAPTER 6
Building a strong team
Your job as a manager will be much easier if you build a great team. That seems obvious, but it’s easy to
fall into the habit of managing the status quo instead of building greatness. To build a strong team:

• Hire the right person. If you have any say or involvement in the hiring process, take it seriously.
75% of employers hire the wrong person, and that ends up being costly both financially and in
human resources. Don’t hire in desperation. Run background checks. Talk to their references. Find
out what you can and decide if that person is both right for the job and right for your team. Every
team has its own personality. Hire wisely.

• Build on strengths. Take the time to discover the strengths of each team member. If an
employee is lacking in an area, you aren’t likely to build that up. Give them work to do that fits
their strengths.

• Be transparent. Secrecy and isolation make weak teams. Be transparent as much as possible
about the big picture, the direction the business or project is headed, what you expect, problems,
victories—don’t keep it hidden. Secrecy inspires gossip and division, not strength.

• Build trust and confidence. By being consistent and reliable in how you manage your team and
relate to each person, you’ll help them trust you. You also make it easier for them to be confident
in their work; they don’t have to wonder how you’ll respond, since your consistency erases those
kinds of doubts.

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 • Use mentorship. Good mentors are priceless. Set up a mentoring approach where more
experienced team members can help those who are newer. Mentoring benefits both parties
involved. They each learn from the experience.

• Skip gimmicks. There are a lot of methods some managers use to “trick” their team into being
productive or work together. They might work for a while, but not over time. Focus on building a
team that works great together no matter the situation, no matter if there’s a reward.

A strong team is one that works together and isn’t isolated from each other. Create an open team through
meetings, communication, office layout, and whatever else it takes to build cohesiveness.

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CHAPTER 7
Driving your team to success
Getting your team to move towards success is not like driving a team of horses. There’s no whips and
yelling. You can’t force people to do what you want them to do, but by rethinking how you “drive” your
team, you can help them to succeed.

• Their success is your success. Some leaders don’t want their followers to exceed them, which,
frankly, makes them bad leaders. If your team members can outshine you, can exceed what you
can do—all the better for the team. Don’t be afraid of that. Don’t try to put a stop to it. Give your
team every chance to achieve more than you.

• Build leaders within. One reason for item #1 is this: you are always looking for leaders within the
team. Give them a chance to lead smaller teams or projects. Find out who tomorrow’s leaders are.

• Take retention seriously. When people quit, it costs you. Stay on top of dissatisfied or unhappy
employees, and fight hard to make the work environment one they want to stay a part of. Studies
have shown that even “low wage” workers are costly to replace. Replacing a $10/hour employee?
About $3300. There are more costs than just financial, of course. When employees leave, they take
their skills, knowledge, personality, and creativity with them.

• Be a motivator. Earlier we talked about how to motivate your team. Take that admonition
seriously. Encourage them. Open every door possible to make their work more successful. Reward
true achievement, particularly when the work is challenging.

• Use rewards, but cautiously. It is good to reward your team, but remember that rewards are not
a substitution for real motivation. If the only thing keeping your team moving forward are rewards,
the moment you take the rewards away your team stops. Reward them for great work, hard work,
team accomplishments, and meeting goals. Don’t use rewards as a carrot on a stick just to get
them to show up to work each day.
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• Be goal-focused. You’ll be creating sales and productivity goals, and you’ll be leading your team
to meet them. Break down those big-picture goals for individuals or groups on your team. Provide
training to help them make their own goals that will help them meet those bigger goals you
expect of them.

• Make it safe to be creative. Innovation doesn’t happen by fiat. It happens when people feel
free to be creative and come up with solutions that might not seem “safe”. Create an environment
where brainstorming, unusual problem solving, and out-of-the-box thinking isn’t mocked or
pushed down. It’s easier to manage according to strict systems and structures, but innovation
doesn’t flourish in that environment. Being free to innovate is highly motivating for your best
employees.

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CHAPTER 8
Recommended management books and
blogs you should read

“Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.”
Harry Truman

Want to be an effective leader? Be a reader. Constantly educate yourself.

These blogs will help you keep up-to-date on the latest employee management techniques and advice
you need to know.

15Five is an employee engagement and performance tracking system. Their blog has tons
of useful advice about how to engage and manage employees.

SnackNation is a healthy snack delivery service that will deliver to home or office. Their
blog tackles things like employee engagement, culture, and realistic approaches employee
wellness ideas (i.e. not programs that are only attainable for large companies).

OfficeVibe is a service that lets you easily survey your teams to collect feedback and real-
time data that will help you build strong, connected teams. Employee engagement is a
huge focus of their blog, and they provide a ton of helpful resources.

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When I Work. Not to toot our own horn, but the When I Work blog is a great resource
for small business tips, management best practices, and leadership advice. You can
download our free ebook The People Management Handbook to dive even deeper into
one of the most important aspects of your new role.

Here are just a few books that will help you as a manager:

The One Minute Manager (by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson)
This book presents common-sense management themes, but does it in a
storytelling scenario-based manner which makes the concepts easy to understand
and apply.

The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership (by John Maxwell)

Any book by Maxwell should be on your reading list, but read
this one for sure. It takes common approaches to management
and breaks them down into 21 easy principles to remember.

Don’t Bring It To Work (by Sylvia Lafair) - This book focuses

on why people behave so strangely at work, and how personal
lives and personality types come into play in difficult work
situations. It helps managers understand the underlying issues
that create situations.

H
 ow To Win Friends And Influence People (by Dale Carnegie)
- There’s a reason this book is a classic: it is an excellent manual
in how to get along with people and get them to move in the
direction you want them to. As a manager, that’s crucial.

The list of books you should read is endless, but look for books that cover
both specific management techniques as well as the psychology of successful
relationships. Along with books, build a collection of blogs or news feeds. They will
provide you with the latest trends and innovations to consider (or reject) much faster
than a book.

THE FIRST-TIME MANAGER HANDBOOK | Page 22

CHAPTER 9
Recommended tools
There’s no perfect tool, and what works for one setting might not for another. However, communication,
organization, project management, and scheduling are the foundation of management. There are tools
for each of those:

Google / the cloud. No, not the search engine. We’re talking storage (Drive), document
creation (Docs, Sheets), planning (calendar) -- your basic software tools, except up in the
cloud. The benefit of the cloud, whether you choose to use Google, Dropbox, or Evernote,
is that you can make files available easily wherever your employees are at. Employee
handbooks and forms, for example, are available everywhere. They don’t have to come
into work to read them.

When I Work. Scheduling employees and handling requests for time off and sick days is
made much easier with the When I Work system. Employees and managers can access the
work schedule, communicate, and make adjustments from their own phone.

Trello. Think of a digital bulletin board with sticky notes. That’s the approach Trello takes
to helping you manage projects or simply unify communication. The beauty of Trello is
that it’s flexible in how you want to use it. Other project management apps, like Basecamp
or Asana, are powerful, but are more geared for serious group project management.

Slack. Communication is crucial, and sometimes emails aren’t always the best route.
Chat rooms that are geared towards business, like Slack or HipChat, keep communication
simple, categorized, and immediate.

THE FIRST-TIME MANAGER HANDBOOK | Page 23

 Any.do. Sometimes a simple to-do list is all you need. Any.do has a great interface that
keeps things easy and uncluttered. Google Keep integrates with Google Docs, as well as
works as a mobile app. Todoist and Remember The Milk are a couple of others in a rather
large selection of to do apps.

Tools are industry-based. A restaurant manager won’t need what an office manager will need. Choosing
the right tools means knowing what you need and not getting caught up in trying to change how you
work to fit the tool. The tool must fit you and your goals, and not the other way around.

THE FIRST-TIME MANAGER HANDBOOK | Page 24

CHAPTER 10
Management is a tough balancing act
Management is tough.

You have to manage your team, but you also have your own work to get done. One of the toughest things
new managers struggle with is balancing both of those two.

It’s a balance of personal and work life. Friendliness and not trying to be a friend. Managing but not
micro-managing. Meeting goals without dehumanizing your team.

You’ll know when you start to lose balance. Tipping over is when your stress levels start to rise, your
employees will seem unwilling or passive aggressive, and you’ll feel like you’re behind the curve. Come
back to this list, if that happens. What are you struggling with the most? What did you forget to do?

Talk to your employees. Talk to your mentor. Talk to those higher up the chain. Be honest and upfront.
Management can be lonely; don’t let personal pride make it even lonelier.

THE FIRST-TIME MANAGER HANDBOOK | Page 25

BONUS
Advice from successful leaders
One of the best ways to become a great manager is to learn from other successful leaders. Before you go
off and become the best manager you can be, take the time to learn from these three experts. Below they
talk about why you should make mistakes, how to build a strong team, and learning outside the manual.

“The most important characteristics to look for in a new potential

manager are passion and energy combined with business acumen and
professionalism.

The best advice I can give my new managers who are new to managing
people is this: Your expectations won’t always be met, rather train
employees to think on their own instead of always telling them exactly
what to do.”

- Suzanne Delica, Owner, Clothes Mentor

THE FIRST-TIME MANAGER HANDBOOK | Page 26

 “The number one thing we instill in our new managers is the Servant
Leadership Model. New leaders must understand that they are not a
boss. We don’t boss people around. Nobody likes that. We are leaders.
We support our team. We talk to them. We get to know them. We find
out what motivates them. When our team under-performs we don’t tell
them what they’re doing wrong. We ask them what we can do to help
them get it right.”

- Alex Thompson, Owner, Thompson Security, LLC

“Some of the biggest challenges a first time manager can face are
determining priorities for responsibilities. As a new manager it’s crucial
to determine what should be a primary concern and what can be
secondary to keep your team on track. To help prepare new managers
for these decisions, I meet with them as often as possible for training,
but I also share a lot of practical advice. Simply sharing example emails
or templates for how things have been done can lead someone down
the path of success. If they take those templates and innovate off the
way things have been done in the past, that’s great!”

- Justin Gala, President and Founder, Certifications For Life Inc.

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THE FIRST-TIME MANAGER HANDBOOK | Page 27

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