Molly Gamble
Forty percent of employees feel stressed or anxious about work due to a first-time manager, with 1 in 5 losing sleep over the situation, according to one new poll.
The Oji Leadership Poll, conducted by Harris Research, found more than a third of employees want to leave their companies due to new managers’ inadequate skills and training. Forty percent of employees attribute their loss of confidence to a first-time manager and 36 percent said the beginner manager situation zaps their motivation to do more or offer suggestions.
More than a third to nearly half of employees rated their first-time managers as being weak at reducing conflict, handling difficult situations, providing quality feedback, running a productive meeting, and making decisions. Older employees were especially likely to rate first-time managers negatively, with more than half of workers age 55+ rating them weak on these skills.
The survey returned a wide gap between respondents’ opinions of new managers and their best managers. Between 80 to 89 percent of workers rated their best managers as strong in reducing conflict, handling difficult situations, providing quality feedback, running a productive meeting, and making decisions.
“Even if you’re going to turn out to be a good manager, you’re still going to have a bad first year,” Linda Hill, PhD, a Harvard University professor of business administration, told Bloomberg about the poll findings. She said managing requires a different skillset from executing, and it is easy to assume rookie managers who were high performers in their prior role already possess the management skillset.
“In my research, I’ve seen how strong individual contributors are often promoted to management roles with little or no leadership training, with a ‘sink or swim’ philosophy,” Dr. Hill said in the Oji Leadership Poll. “It’s no surprise that these untrained leaders often struggle in many areas, compromising the productivity and agility of their teams in these very competitive times.”
