How to Support Your New Managers for Long-Term Success with Ross Saunders

Ever wonder why your top performers crash and burn when they're promoted to management? Has that ever come up? I mean, they were rock stars in their old roles. But now, they're struggling and your team is feeling the huge impact. That's what we're talking about today on Experience Leadership.

Welcome to Experience Leadership, a podcast that challenges small business owners and entrepreneurs just like you to dare to be the exception. Join our host, customer experience expert Marc Haine, as he uncovers relevant and timely content to help you script and direct your business and teams to create jaw-dropping experiences your customers and staff deserve. Here is the host of Experience Leadership, author of Lights! Camera! Action!, customer experience expert Marc Haine.

Welcome to this episode! I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. I am so grateful that you are tuning in with me today. My guest for this episode is sought-after advisor and speaker Ross Saunders. Today, we're diving into one of the biggest, most expensive challenges that businesses face. Why is it that your best employees often become your worst manager? And what's really going on beneath the surface? That's what we're talking about today. So, what I want to ask of you is this. If you know somebody who could use this information, please go ahead and make sure you share a link to this episode. I love when we share our resources and our knowledge. I have to tell you that I was so thrilled that at the tender age of 19, I was promoted to the role of assistant manager in the restaurant I was working in. Thrilled is an understatement. All of my hard work for the last 18 months was paying off. My committed energy, my attention to detail, and my performance were all being rewarded when my store manager Steve came to me and said, Marc, I've noticed that everything you've been doing so far, and I, I'd love for you to take on the assistant manager position and get everyone up to your standards. If I could have done the Snoopy dance, I would have. I felt what I did mattered. That is until I got into my new role. All of a sudden, I felt like I was out on a limb. I felt like a fish out of water. The skills I had that led to my promotion were nothing in my new role. I had no idea what to do, how to get the best out of my people. And the worst part was being called into the office with the, what the hell is wrong with you, conversation. Within 16 months of being promoted, I resigned. So that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, are your star employees struggling to lead their teams, leaving you wondering why their management performance doesn't match what their previous success looked like? I'd love to hear your stories. Feel free to share this episode on your favorite social media platform. #GetExperienceLeadership. And let's bring this topic out into the open because I think the more leaders know that this is a challenge, the better we'll be to address it. As I mentioned, my guest today is someone who knows all too well the challenges that come from stepping into a management role for the very first time. By day, my guest Ross Saunders is a privacy and governance specialist working tirelessly to protect personal information on a global scale. But beyond his impressive credentials in that field, Ross has a passion for something equally important, helping new managers succeed in the roles that they've been thrust into. With over a decade of experience leading teams and coaching new managers, Ross brings a wealth of practical, battle-tested insights. Aside from guiding leaders with his insightful keynote addresses, Ross is also the author of the candid and insightful book This Is Not What I Signed Up For, which skips the academic jargon and gets straight to the heart of what new managers need in order to thrive. Ross, welcome to the show. It is so great to have you back.

Yeah, it's great to be back. I love the story you just told. I'm sitting in the green room just grinning because I know that so well. And that, that whole description is, is Ah, that's exactly where it comes from.

Yes, yes. And I have a sneaking suspicion a lot of people who tune into this go, oh, I've been there, I've done that. But before we get too deep into today's topic, could you just tell us a little bit about how you serve your clients?

So, as you mentioned, during the day, I'm in the privacy space. So, so we look after people's data and governance and things like that. But part of that is working with everyone's teams, working in this ongoing consultative manner, which really tied into the passion on this side, which is helping the manager side of things. So, that is where it comes in on my personal passion with the book and looking at doing training for new managers, coaching, that side of things with writings and podcasts and things like that.

Lovely. So, what are some of the most common reasons why new managers struggle when transitioning from What you call an individual contributor to a manager or to a leader?

I think there are a number of factors that come into it. And it's kind of, it almost becomes a perfect storm of it. And a lot of times, the folks that are going into management are moving into it because they've been promoted, rightfully so, because they are perhaps really excellent performers. And they're coming into management, perhaps not quite knowing what it entails. They've perhaps come in having one-on-one engagements with other team members, or they've managed a small project or something like that. And it's very easy to get stuck in the, oh, well, I can just jump in and do this, and I can scale it up very rapidly because I've managed a small project, or I've worked with a smaller team or something like that. And I think that's kind of where the title of the book came in with This Is Not What I Signed Up For, where you don't necessarily know what you're getting yourself into in this space. But the flip side is, it comes to the other side of the company as well, where you've had this fantastic performer, you're bringing them in, it sounds great, they've performed so well for so long, like your story that you were giving. And now, they get moved in and are expected to just be as wonderful as they were as a specialist or an individual contributor in this management role where they're no longer an individual. They're now the face of the team, the guidance to the team.

Yeah. So, I mean, obviously, there's what got people into the leadership role is not the same set of skills that they require now to lead people. So, what gaps do you see in the current training programs for new managers?

Well, I think one of the problems is there are not many training programs for new managers.

Oh, right.

If you look at a lot of the training that's available on different websites and things like that, the training tends to start, from what I've seen, or at least the subject matter of it, really kind of comes in from a middle management side and upwards. There's not much of that guidance or training for the new manager that's just stepped up into the role. It's kind of, let's go on the job and figure it out as we go. Once you've got some experience, let's do the training that's out there. That doesn't help a lot for giving that baseline thing. Like you mentioned, you know, once you were a manager, it was different things that you were into. And Eventually, that takes a toll on you, and you may end up leaving, you may end up staying, you may end up getting out of management entirely, like, this is not for me, but it could be absolutely rewarding. So, I think it's very scattered on the training side.

You know, my experience was that there were expectations, and really, I had to learn through osmosis. For instance, like, all of a sudden, I got promoted to lead my peers, and my original thought process was, oh, this is gonna be great. They're all my friends, so we're gonna get along really well together. It's gonna be so fantastic. And then, you know, I found that very quickly, it's like they started taking advantage of that friendship because I wasn't very firm. I didn't have really clear boundaries. And so then I became the dictator, and it's like, that's it now, nobody's going to take advantage of me. And I, and I went through this whole big pendulum swing of behaviors trying to figure it out because I had nothing to show me.

For sure.

So these gaps that we're seeing, I see, are critical But for the audience, why are they so critical?

There are so many moving parts to this and to that question of why they're critical. You have been put into a management role, you move into a management role, you do need to start managing fairly quickly in order for— to not lose momentum in the teams, to not lose the activities that you're currently running. You need continuity of the different projects that are running. So, as much as there is Perhaps the, okay, you're going to learn from osmosis, and you're going to come on board, and it'll take time, and we understand it'll take time. But sometimes that time is too long, and those gaps is where we start dropping the balls then on these different aspects that are happening. If we're not on top of some of the soft skills we need in that management role, we can be as technical as we like, but those broader team objectives are going to start getting missed.

Right, right. You know, for managers who are Or department heads who are looking at managers who have been promoted, are there any early warning signs that a newly promoted manager might be struggling in their new role?

Depending on the person that you're dealing with. And one of the big things that I would always suggest, and I suggest this even in the book to junior managers coming in, and this applies to management all the way up the line, I think these are baseline skills, meet with your people frequently. So, if you've recently promoted someone to a manager, you want to be meeting with them fair amount of time. Don't just leave them to swim because chances are they'll sink. You want to have a chat with them and make sure where they're at. Are they struggling with something? A lot of folks that have come into these management roles, I don't know if it's a defense mechanism or a natural human instinct, but a lot of the folks that have come from these wildly specialized roles or really great performers are used to being great performers. So when they come into this management role and they're taking it over, they might not be telling you that they are struggling because they've got a track record of being fantastic and they're scared to let you know that they're not being fantastic. So I think as a manager managing these managers, you need to be open with that fact that, look, it's okay to fail a bit. It's okay to make missteps. Tell me where you're at. Let me help you and get a lot of that in. I think that That conversation and that communication is critical. I mean, that's why it's the first chapter in the book, it's communication.

Hmm.

You need to communicate, you need to be chatting, and then you'll start picking up those warning signals that you might be looking for, balls being dropped, things like that. Putting someone in management does not immediately make it no longer your problem that you have to worry about that function. It makes it more of your problem for a while, while you're getting them up to speed. Start slow to move quickly, I think.

Yes. You know, I know that from my experience getting into a management position, the very first thing that was my Bible, or I was told should be my Bible, is we have a policy and procedure manual. Just follow that, I was told, right? Which turned me into a little bit of a Nazi when push came to shove.

So, what are some of the common mistakes new managers make when they're trying to lead their teams without this You know, I think there are mistakes that people are going to make regardless, because it's part of the learning process to get into it. But I think what you're mentioning there is very much something that'll come in. And it's probably the biggest one that I see, and it ties into a lot of authenticity as a manager. And that's where someone comes in as a new manager, they look at the managers around them for advisory or mentorship or even copying, to emulate these other managers that they might have. But that's not their authentic style. So they end up bringing in these styles that might be authoritarian or dictatorial, or it's too collaborative where nothing gets done because there's just so much collaboration all the time. I think a lot of it is really having the room to look for the style that they want to manage in, something that's authentic to them. How do they respond to things? And that does take time to find, but I think, again, it's a two-way street here. The folks that have promoted them need to give them the opportunity to come into that. One of the biggest mistakes I made was forcing myself into a box of a manager that I had, thinking that that's what the company wants, and I will work like him. And I had to let people go, and I had to take his approach to letting people go, and I felt so inauthentic. I felt sick to my stomach the way that things rolled out. It was a big, heart-sore learning curve for me. I would have had very different conversations with those people if I was letting someone go and doing it authentically from me, as opposed to trying to emulate someone else. I think that's a big one that I see.

But again, you know, what are our experiences? I mean, we're emulating because we don't know any better. We don't have our own experiences to help us guide. We don't have the training. We don't have an insight even into human dynamics. You mentioned the soft skill side of it. That's something that we either have to be trained in or it's gonna take time to develop. And so in the meantime, we're gonna be falling flat on our face. And I think that's where some of the frustration comes in.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's where we kind of loop around to that training and the lack of training on certain skills that need to come in so that people don't fall flat with these starter foundational skills that they need to have.

Yeah, I know my experience was when I went to the boss and I said, I just, I'm really unsure what to do. He literally looked at me and he said, you know, you've been working here for 2 years now. You know how things operate, just make them operate. Which to me was, again, because the only thing I had to go in was we had training videos, we had policy and procedure manuals and everything else. And, and to your point, I felt inauthentic because I didn't, you know, I thought what they wanted was they wanted, you know, just follow all these really core things. And so there was no room for innovation. There was no room for really critical thinking. And so, when things came to a head and they always did, I didn't have a clue. I wasn't armed with any skills whatsoever to deal with the conflicts or the problems or the challenges. So, my experience has been that it all works nicely if everything's smooth sailing, but it's very rarely smooth sailing.

Yeah, that is for sure. And I think that there are foundational skills that are not And tying into what you're talking about with policies and procedures, we do see that a lot. And it also comes to companies as to how they write their policies and procedures. I mean, you can write the best policy in the world that caters for absolutely every eventuality, and you can refer back to it, like, well, you violated this policy over here. That's not nice for anyone there.

No.

It's not nice for the manager having to take someone on about it. It's not nice for the company having to deal with the culture of that. And it's not great on the person at the end, because it really does stifle that innovation. It stifles how you're doing things. I think this is where we come to those foundational skills that you can learn. And it's not necessarily a checkbox skill, but it's what happens within communications. What are you looking for? How do you listen to someone and actually take it in to understand what they're saying and not listening to just respond to someone? Right?

Not just having a checklist or tapping of a The seconds on the, on the watch saying, okay, okay, we covered it. You mentioned these skills, and I'd like to delve into kind of the 5 core skills that new leaders need to master. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back. I am speaking with the author of This Is Not What I Signed Up For, Mr. Ross Saunders. Ross, why don't you tell us a little bit about your book?

Sure. Yeah. So, as you mentioned, there's kind of 5 foundations that came in with it. And in putting the book together, it was while I was working full-time as I was managing managers when I started writing the book a few years back. And it was interesting to see the folks coming in as graduates who had started in the company, and then the folks that had been there a while who had come in as grads, they'd become specialists, and then they were being promoted into management, and they were asking for help. which was great. That's the culture we had. There were no ivory towers or anything like that. But there was no defined help that we could give. And I wanted to get something together that would really dive into the important parts that they would need to focus on. We were one of these typical high-performance software companies where everything is down to the minute, and it's bullet points and agile, which sometimes just means you don't have documentation. And the idea was to look for these skills. So I interviewed a lot of the executives that I was working with within the business, within the holding company, within our clients, with other businesses that I dealt with. And we came down to pretty much 5 sections being communication and listening. So how do you communicate within a team? How do you communicate externally with clients, managing expectations, that side of things? How do you really listen? Like I was saying, how do you take it in? How do you process what someone's saying so that you actually have the full story? Then it came back into time management and task management. So, how do you put your tasks together on a day-to-day basis? I mean, if you're an individual contributor, it's very easy to say, well, this is what my day's going to look like, and I'm planning it out X, Y, and Z. When you're a manager, you're looking after your own timeline, you're looking after the timeline for the team, you're looking after the timeline for individuals within your team, you're slotting them together. It becomes quite a management— it's management Tetris, really, for your calendar. So, there's time management and task management. There's the delegation side. A lot of times, your pros that you've brought in that have been great contributors, they don't really know how to delegate. They've been individual for so long that they just do the work themselves. So, how do you get that delegation out to someone else? We go into performance management. So, when things go wrong, how do you raise that policy point like, oh, you violated this? What's the approach that you can take? What's a good, defensible, ethical way of having performance management when something's not going the way you want it to in a team without wrecking the culture or already breaking someone down? And lastly, if it does divert out of all of these things and it gets to— worst comes to worst, the last chapter is about conflict. So, how do you deal with conflict in a team? How do you deal with different cultures in your team? How do you deal with different individuals that may clash? That kind of thing. So, those are the initial 5 that came in from the different interviews I was doing.

I mean, I think we could probably do a podcast episode on each one of those 5. But for the people who are tuned in, kind of looking for the first step, what do you think is the most important first step they need to take in kind of creating an environment where you can assimilate into that leadership role without crashing and burning as much as we do?

Again, I will say it's the reason why it became the first chapter was really that communications and listening. We are very good at listening to formulate a response that we're going to give someone. And it could be to make ourselves look favorable. It could be that we're trying to make it look like we really know what we're doing when perhaps we don't. And the result is you don't necessarily take in the correct information. You're not listening to what's happening around you. And you might not be communicating to all the right stakeholders. When you come into this kind of management role, you have so much information that you need to gather, and there are so many different moving parts that I think communication becomes key to actually understanding where these moving parts are, what they are, and what you need to focus on. If you're having regular communication with your team members that you're managing, You're gonna find out where they're at. You're gonna build rapport with them. You're gonna find out how they're doing. And in doing so, you're gonna find out how you're doing as a manager. And some people might not be straightforward with telling you how you're doing. They don't really want to hurt your feelings or you're new in the role, but you want them to tell you some kind of feedback. And it's important to be able to take that feedback. So, part of the communications side is accepting the feedback that someone gives you so that you know if you're doing something wrong or terrible or something like that. In other cases, you might have team members— my first role as a manager, I had team members that pulled no punches in telling me exactly what they thought of my management style. And that was a very big lesson. And Marc, I didn't have myself leave, my team left. That was from really not doing the right style, not listening to people, not seeing where they were at.

Yes.

So, I think it's vital that we have that component in there of actually listening to people and hearing and taking in that feedback for ourselves as well. And what are we doing? And the same goes for your managers. Find out how they think you're doing and get advice there as well.

Brilliant suggestion. You know, on top of it all, I think, you know, if people have a challenge with this whole idea, an idea of communication is to look for how can I get training in communication specifically so that I can start rooting from the perspective of wanting to understand versus to respond.

And there are some tremendous materials out there around listening and things like that. Crucial Conversations is a fantastic book around communications and all of that. It's great for a first manager. And I'd highly recommend that as well, as well as This Is Not What I Signed Up For.

Perfect. Ross, for the people who are tuned in who this might be resonating with, how can people get in contact with you?

Easiest is on my website, which is thisisnotwhatisignedupfor.com.

Okay.

And that'll give you details about everything that's happening, where you could get a hold of me, where you can get a hold of the book. There's contact forms there. Otherwise, I'm on LinkedIn. Drop me a message as to why you want to connect. And yeah, I'm very open to connecting there.

Lovely. Thank you for that. You mentioned, as I think it was the third point, was delegation. You know, part of the challenge I've seen in many young managers is that they get to the point where it's like, it's just easier for me to do it myself. Can you talk about the importance of delegation in the context of getting things done and being successful as a new leader?

Yeah.

And I think part of, if we're talking about delegation, we need to also talk about outcomes. And being clear with what outcomes we want as a manager, outcomes that the company wants from people. A big trap that you can fall into is you've done well, you've been fantastic at your role, you're a technical specialist, you've been promoted because you're good at your role, and you could get this done really quickly. Like, we could just push this out the door in a day rather than waiting for someone to complete it and learn it. But then you start losing out on things like succession. So, if something had to happen to you, what happens then? Who can do this role? And you start having issues with really controlling how people do things. And this is where I want to bring it back to the outcomes. If you know what your outcome is that you want something to happen, and you have a kind of timeline that you want to look at, delegate that to your team members and give them the outcome that you're looking for. How they get to that outcome is not necessarily going to be the same way that the person who is the new manager or as you would do it. They are perhaps going to take a different route. It's their own approach. They're learning a bit. They might falter. They may lose the steps. But the important thing is, do they get to the outcome that you're looking for? If they get to that outcome that you're looking for, they've not necessarily done anything wrong there. And that's where you can start. The first time you get through that, I think, is where you start seeing that I can actually delegate it. It doesn't necessarily need to be done my way. And someone else might pick it up. Now, that's not to say hand something to someone and hope for the best and don't follow up or anything. That's called throwing it over the fence. That's not delegation. You want to still validate that someone is following and getting to the outcomes and not stumbling or something. And that's part of management as well, is having that empathy, having that help. Sure, step in and help someone who you've delegated to, and then you can get your technical fix in by helping a bit. Don't do the whole thing. Help them and bring them in. And the idea is you're in management now. You're not gonna be doing that technical role where you are right now. You need someone else to be doing it. Otherwise, you're not gonna be freed up to do the management side and grow in that space, which is exactly what you need to do right now. So, delegation is very important. It's very hard to get to that. It's something that I still struggle with years down the line of managing people.

Yeah, it's interesting you say that. As I go into organizations, I find that that's probably one of the biggest handicaps people have outside of the communication piece. is that they don't know how to delegate and they don't know what they can delegate and they don't know how to do it effectively. So with follow-up and so on. So I actually created a delegation quiz. The link is in the show notes where you can take the quiz and then once you complete it, you'll get a 15-step or a 15-point feedback on different things you could look at as far as delegation, the skills required within delegation, because a lot of what we've been talking about today has points of it, like the communication is in there. Right? The humility aspect of what we need to be as leaders is also in the delegation side. Can you talk a little bit about the importance of confidence and the kind of normal feelings high performers experience in their new roles?

You can have such a pendulum swing in this confidence space and things like that. And it ties into so many aspects of your leading. You know, I think there's that initial burst when you become a new manager that There's perhaps, there could be an overconfidence because now you're new in the role, you're brought into it, and let's do things. And it's very easy to jump in and make a lot of changes, do a lot of things, get in there and really whip things into the shape that you want them to be in. But that could be an almost overconfident, arrogant kind of approach to doing it, which is not going to win you any favors with teams or anything like that. So, I think that there is a balance to be struck between sort of confidence and arrogance when you get into the role. And by the same token, you are going to get knocked down for something. I think it's not an if, it's a when. And in that case, your confidence is going to take a knock. And it's important to have these baselines and the rapport that you can have with your teams to be able to regain that. You need, as a manager, to be able to make decisions. You need to be able to make hard calls where, you know, You're gonna have to do something that's not what you want, but you have to work with the team. It's for the good of the team and things like that. So, you need to look into your confidence and keep it in check. And communication is with your team, it's with yourself as well. You've got to be honest with yourself as to where you're at in terms of your own confidence and things like that. I know if I'm knocked down a bit in confidence, I'm gonna battle to manage a bit. And there are certain exercises I've developed over the years to regain that confidence and self-reflection, like, did I do this for the good of it? everyone? Did I make a mistake in doing this? Was I knee-jerk reaction kind of leading this? And that self-assessment will let you gauge, well, okay, maybe I was wrong here. Let's apologize and have some empathy. And like, let's relook at this. Let's communicate around it. Or maybe it's like, well, yes, I think I was justified. These are the reasons I was justified. We have the facts. I speak in the book about really keeping things to the facts and not being emotional about it. But have the facts, realize like, no, I did this for the right reasons. Then you can regain that confidence as well, as well as explaining yourself if you need to.

Yeah. And it's one thing to say, I did it for the right reasons, but maybe I did it wrong, or I applied it wrong, or I failed to take into account— it's so funny because everything that we've been talking about, I can't help but feel that things like humility are kind of the first virtues you need to experience on day one of getting promoted, that we have to get away from this thing that Okay, I've just been promoted because I'm so gosh darn good, and people are gonna love me. And I think we really need to take inventory of where our humility is sitting at and how it's coming across to everybody around us as well.

Yeah, you have to have empathy. Management is about empathy and working with people and working with yourself. You've gotta be aware of that kind of thing. And you speak to, like, the virtues. I think as a manager, you have to know what your virtues and values are. Because you're going to find it very difficult to manage if you're not in touch with your own values. And I think this is where that delegation part becomes difficult. It's where conflict comes in. It's where managing in an inauthentic style comes in. If you're not in touch with how you would handle things, then it becomes very, very difficult to slot values in that are not particularly yours.

And I love that you're talking from your own personal experience because you started off talking about how You tried to be somebody else. And because you had an incongruency with your value systems, not only did the outcomes fail to result positively, but you yourself felt bad about how it all kind of fell out. Yeah.

And it's lessons I will keep with me until I'm no longer managing, and probably longer, because it really hurts to not work within your values and not I mean, you're with a team. The team is, not to be— not to sound funny, but the team is a form of family that you're in. And it is gonna be— you're gonna have clashes, you're gonna have things, but if you hurt someone, it hurts. At least for me, and I don't work well on that. You have to have that empathy.

It's funny that you came around and said the word family because one of the things in the last 6 months I've really been focused on is the fact that we're not so much family, But we are community.

Yes, yes, I like that.

And so, I think so that in itself is one of the big drivers I think for new managers is to realize that you're becoming a leader of a community. And in that, think about kind of the best leaders that you've seen leading communities and all sorts of big names start coming out and you start thinking, what were their key virtues? What were their key values as they were stepping up? into those roles, and then take inventory of that for yourself.

Yeah, yeah. I think that's a fantastic way to go. And I think community is really good. I speak in some of the newer chapters that I'm working on in that subculture in your team and that the culture that you're brewing, there's the culture of the company as a whole. There are subcultures in your teams that you're going to be growing. And you as the manager are guiding that subculture happening. It can form on its own, but You would want to give it a little nudge every now and again to the right subculture that you're looking for.

Right.

And that's that community building as well.

Yeah. And then it comes back to the communication piece of being able to constantly be pushing and communicating forward what those values and what those outcomes are on a consistent basis so that it becomes part of the vernacular as well for your culture.

Correct.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And if you're having these regular conversations, it becomes easier to manage. And the conversation— you can have long conversations every 6 months, or you can have very quick conversations every few minutes.

Yeah.

And you can build things so beautifully and build such a rapport with everyone, and performance starts taking care of itself, and issues start getting taken care of early instead of blowing up later. People know what their expectations are of each other. Rapid communication all the time really helps.

And it kind of sets aside kind of personal agendas and that sort of thing. Like, it's very hard to have a personal agenda where you're trying to manipulate outcomes and so on when you're constantly having to be in communication and constantly be held accountable to outcomes and the value statements and so on that have been defined. So, I think you end up with a lot more, for lack of a better word, honesty within the team as well.

Yeah, definitely. And that's what you want.

Yeah, when we come back, I'd like to talk a little bit about some pitfalls and cautionaries for the people who might be listening to this and thinking, I need to do something with my culture and with our leaders. And we'll get to that right after this.

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We are having such a phenomenal discussion. I hope you are getting tons of value from what you're listening to today. As you can tell, Ross and I are super focused on serving you and your team. So, if you are planning a leadership retreat or a conference, or you'd like to explore how we could be of benefit to you and your team, drop us a line. Our contact details are in The show notes. So, Ross, how important is building a support network around oneself when you get promoted?

Oh, I think that is so vitally important. And it was something I was thinking about as we were discussing around communities and things like that as well. Having a support network within the business is one thing. Having an external support network is also a phenomenal way of growing yourself and learning how to manage and things like that. And there are a lot of opportunities out there for building that kind of network as well. So I'm a big fan of volunteering in other bodies, and there are professional bodies that may be for your industry and things where there's a wealth of knowledge as well to help you in the space that you might be in.

So could we dig a little bit deeper? Like, what does that all mean? Like, when you talk about having— finding external support outside, what are you referring to specifically?

In various industries that you might be in, you may have professional bodies that guide your industry. There are also special interest groups. For example, I came out of the tech space at the time that I was writing the book, and I was a member of a number of these special interest groups where it was for the technical software space that we were in. We were also in the audit industry, so I was part of a risk management body and things like that. But it's other communities that you can surround yourself in where you you can ask for advice and people who've been there before or perhaps had similar challenges and things like that. So you can gain a lot more experience outside the echo chamber that is the company that you're in. Because when we're talking about mimicking styles and finding your style and things like that, it's very limiting to look only in one place.

Mm-hmm.

So whereas if you're building those relationships externally, you can start seeing like, oh, wow, I really like the way she does that. I think I'm going to take that on a little bit. And these external bodies have leadership roles. Have things like that. It's great to get involved in these too, because then you can start seeing other sides of leadership. I was heavily involved in Rotary for a long time. I'm part of a speakers association. I've been part of multiple privacy and audit associations. I've been part of safety bodies. I'm pretty much always in at least 2 or 3 professional bodies here or there or everywhere. And often I find myself volunteering for leadership roles as well, because it's just such a great A way to upskill and learn, learn with people, grow people, grow yourself, and it builds into a support network for you as well beyond just your team, your family that you might be discussing with, your company that you're working in.

I know that from a CEO perspective, and I'm a big fan of things like Tech Canada and Vistage where, you know, these are organizations that will bring CEOs from different businesses in different industries coming together to talk about their issues and to help strategize and find solutions together. Because again, you can't necessarily see the forest for the trees if you're standing in the middle of the forest. And so, other people's perceptions can really help us open our viewpoint and our lens on our business by living in theirs. For brand new managers, that gets a little bit tougher. So, I'm glad you mentioned Rotary. Is there anything to your experience that entry-level supervisors, people who haven't really built up the chops in leadership, that they could be joining in order to gain similar kinds of insights?

Yeah, I think there are a few kind of avenues you could go. Rotary, for one, will introduce you to many people in different levels and things like that. So, you can start having the conversations around different levels. But I remember from my side, being in the tech space, there was a body that I had looked at, where they have everything from specialists through managers through different roles in the tech and IT space that have special interest groups that you could be part of, and you can learn from that. Aside from that, there are so many informal groups and associations that you can look at on, say, meetup.com. I use meetup.com so much for special interests and hobbies and things like that, for like hack labs and all these things where you can just meet people with same interests. I'm part of a few CTO bodies. I'm part of a few product management bodies. So wherever you've got these different spaces that you want to join, you can go in. Like, even talking about the product management side, the TPMA, Toronto Product Management Association, they're wonderful because product managers are basically managers on their own. They're managing products, but also people. And everyone there is from different levels. So I encourage people to go look for these groups that are either in their industry, Or the space they play in. There might be retail bodies that you could look at if you're in the retail space. There could be tech bodies, there can be financial bodies. There's a lot of special interest groups. And I know in the tech space, you can look for SIGs, S-I-Gs, special interest groups that you can perhaps join.

Yeah. I love that. You know, I just came back from California, I spoke at the California Restaurant Show. And I was absolutely flabbergasted at the scope of expertise that was actually in the room from different aspects, different people with different feelers in, in the industry who are— would be really good mentors to anybody coming up in the restaurant industry. So, you know, this idea of, you know, I know that time and attention and focus is really difficult for a lot of people to say, oh, I'm going to join an association, I'm going to take advantage of what they have to offer. But I would think that that would be a really great time and money investment, is to become part of a local association.

Yeah, and it grows you without you realizing it. I think one of the big things in associations, I've ever learned anything from them. What you put in is what you get out. So, if you go in there and you really take part, you'll get out so much more. I think you actually get out more than you put in, in most cases, in my experience. And you'll learn a whole lot from being in these spaces, and you can learn from the leaders around you.

Having— you and I belong to the same professional organization for the professional speakers, but also my background is being in hospitality. I've always been involved. And to your point, I think we grow so much more because just by getting into a leadership role within the organization gives us face time with so many different stakeholders. But yet, I still feel that people will join associations and yet, they still will stay on the periphery of the association, really not get involved. And then, a year and a half later go, oh, I don't think I'll renew. I really didn't get too much out of it. So, to your point—

Yes.

You get out of it what you put into it, right?

Yeah, most definitely. I've had such value from the associations I'm part of. It benefits you in other ways other than just management. You build a network of peers that you can go to with problems and things like that. It's really supportive.

Yeah. This has been such a great discussion. I realized we kind of went a little bit off topic with the whole networking thing, but I still think it was really important that for people getting promoted outside their skill set into a role of leadership, I think just understanding that there are people out there who are willing to help, who can help and so on is an important factor. As people are tuning into this, when we think about this idea of expanding our capacity as entry-level leaders, are there any cautionaries, any pitfalls that we should be aware of as people kind of try to uncover this? Or even from the employer perspective, any cautionaries or pitfalls you would suggest that they be aware of as they promote these people coming up?

Yeah, I think I'd really like to focus in on those employer side, and I'm glad you brought that up. You know, I think we've spoken about someone taking up a management style that's not theirs. I think the employer needs to support also not enforcing a particular management style on someone. And that, I think, leads more into don't control the process too much. I spoke earlier about it, you know, having the outcomes that you want to see. The employer should look for outcomes as well. And let people, within some good safeguards and boundaries, explore how they are going to become managers and build their process internally as to how they manage. And then it'll start getting through with that authenticity and people managing in their own style. So, I think you need to step back and let people have a bit of that space while still checking in to make sure they're following where they should be. I do think the other side of this as well is the expectation of the employer must also— you must also watch that you're not still expecting this person to do their specialized role while they're in management. Sure, there is going to be a phase-over or a handover period where they might be training new people to do the specialized role, but it's very easy to continue relying on someone being the specialist while expecting them to be a manager, which can set them up to fail.

Oh, yeah.

They don't have enough time to do both of those. So, they should be passing on that knowledge and bringing up into the management role of themselves, and their employers should be supporting them with something as simple as a percentage of time split that they are expected between these 2 roles. But you can't expect someone to be doing 2 roles and not burn out and totally fail in the space.

I like that you set that parameter of kind of delineating between one role and the other role because The other downfall, if we allow the technician to keep on doing what they've always done, is they will then start to blend into becoming that micromanager, right? We start— Oh yeah, yeah. Because somebody will turn around and say, well, we'll hire somebody to replace you. Just make sure that they're up to par before you step back. But that could continue on ad nauseam.

Yeah.

Because we haven't taught them not to be a micromanager.

Yeah, for sure. And there will be the time period cutover, but yeah, it's— we need to support it.

So, any other pitfalls or cautionaries you would have for leaders or for the brand-new supervisor, manager coming into a role?

I think a big thing is to— and this applies to both sides— is give permission for some failure. There is going to be failure that happens along the way. And it might not be failure. Failure is perhaps a heavy word for it. But there's going to be missteps. There's going to be the wrong decision made. And you're going to have to roll with that and figure out what the right one should have been and how you work with that. But I think It needs to be supportive. No one has inherently got the skill set to just waltz in and do all of it. I'm sure there are some wunderkinds like that that would come in, but I don't think we should expect that of everyone. And I think there just needs to be patience around.

I doubt that it actually happens. Like, one of the things I did with the one leader, when he was frustrated that a new leader couldn't keep up with stuff, I asked him if he had ever skateboarded. And he said, no, he never did. I said, okay, well, it's really easy. And I actually took out a skateboard and I handed it to him. I said, you stand on it and you push yourself and then you'll be able to go as far as you want.

Give it a try.

And he right away looked at it and goes, there's no way. I don't know what I'm doing. And I said, well, isn't that interesting that you promoted somebody who's never been in a leadership role expecting them to be really great leaders without having the training and the practice to be able to do that? So, I love that point about being forgiving a little bit that there are going to be growing pains. And my hope is that based on our conversation today, That people aren't going to expect their new leaders to learn leadership through osmosis, right? And that they'll actually take time and energy and maybe a little bit of money to be able to train people past— don't wait until they're middle manager until they work their way past to a certain point. But start early with that mentorship and with that training. Yeah.

And mentorship, training, coaching, it doesn't necessarily need to be a course. It doesn't necessarily need to be a book.

It has to be intentional.

There are so many ways of bringing this in. But Yeah, don't leave someone floundering.

Yeah. This has been a wonderful conversation, Ross. Do you have any last thoughts about what we're talking about today?

I think we've gone through a lot of it. I think one of the things that was something that has stuck with me over the years was from a company that I worked with where it's the whole culture and the whole way of doing things throughout the management team, from executive right down to senior, middle, junior, was to make yourself obsolete. And the company culture was to build relentlessly this succession planning. And the idea was not that you make yourself obsolete by handing over work to someone else and skilling them up to do it. And the idea is not to push you out the company, but it pushes you up the company. And it was a wonderful thing that I learned. And it's something that has stuck with me a lot throughout my management career is being open now to, okay, I can hand over this stuff because I'm moving up. I'm not moving out. And that making yourself obsolete works really, really well. And that fostering that kind of culture changes the mindset and allows for people to learn very, very well.

I love that thought because whenever we talk about make yourself obsolete, people think, well, I'll make myself obsolete and I'll be out the door. And I'll—

right?

So, you're absolutely right. This idea of supporting upwards. But again, it's got to be part of the corporate culture messaging is that we want you to work yourself up, not work yourself out.

Yeah.

Yeah, very much so.

This has been so good, Ross. Thank you so much for doing this with us today. I can't thank you enough for sharing your expertise and your passion and of course, your book, which is available on Amazon, right?

Yeah, it is. It is. And the second edition is coming soon.

And could you remind everybody one more time how they can get a hold of you?

You can get a hold of me at my website, which is thisisnotwhatisignedupfor.com. Or you can hunt me down over at LinkedIn, pop me a message and say, Say, this is how I heard about you and let's connect there.

Brilliant! Ross, thank you again. This has been great.

Thank you for having me. It's been awesome to be back.

Why don't you let me know if this was of value to you? As always, my offer stands. If you would like 30 minutes of my time to brainstorm your business with you and your team, feel free to book time on my online calendar. The link is down below in the show notes. It's the one that's marked meetwith.marc. MarcHaine.com. It would be my absolute honor to be of service to you. And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and leave a comment or review about this episode? I'd love to get your feedback. Was this of value to you? Did you have any nuggets? And while you're at it, why don't you go ahead and make sure that you subscribe and ring the bell? That way, you get notification whenever I bring you fresh new content each and every week with the brilliance of like Ross Sandler. Thank you so much for joining me today. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception.

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