5 tips for the newly minted department head

I want to share 5 important, in my opinion, things that a specialist who has suddenly become the head of his department should realize. This is rather parting, psychological pumping, than specific methods, but it seems to me that career changes are a moment for internal changes. I myself was lucky to become the head of a new department created from employees working in a certain area, and this is what I managed to figure out for myself.

Do not value your place

Your position is not self-valuable - your contribution to the business is valuable while you are in this position. Clinging to a place, whatever benefits it brings, is destructive to your personality and career.



You may feel very lucky that you have been made a leader. Good luck, comparable to the lottery win, good luck that you need to grab and keep as much as possible. This is an erroneous position: your boss is not an idiot, he chose you to this place for your qualities, and not by the method of scientific tyke. (If your boss is an idiot, it is also quite difficult to consider luck - run from there rather). Your qualities are impermanent, as are the circumstances outside, and the chef may just as well decide to dislodge you from this position.



There will be times when you will hate your chair and all the tedious and heavy duties that are attached to it. Your leadership position is just a stage in your life, just like any other. If your wife is pregnant, you won’t hope that she is like a year or two with this cute tummy - on the contrary, you will make every effort to end the pregnancy successfully and on time, no matter how long it may seem. It’s the same with work - no matter how pleasant the fact of going to a management position is, it’s stupid to try to hold onto it for the sake of the fact, but it’s right to try to bring maximum benefit.

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In turn, leaving a management position is not a disaster if you are sure that you did everything correctly. If you are just as worthwhile a specialist as you were, you will not perish and earn.

Speak how to do it, but don't do it.

Heading the department, you, of course, are responsible for its effective work. But it will be a big mistake to systematically ensure this effectiveness by personal efforts.



Yes, most likely, you were chosen for the role of leader because of the vast experience and skills. And now your task is not to apply these skills personally, but to make sure that they are in the same volume with as many of your employees as possible.



The head of the transport department does not personally deliver the customers to the bottler directly to the fitting. He makes sure that the drivers Larionov and Kutko did not forget about their work.



The main mistake of the new manager will be to do everything that is necessary and how it should be silently for his employees. You really can and should apply your skills and experience to directly participate in difficult situations, but first of all the situation should be such that your employee could not cope and probably will not cope during the next attempt, and only therefore you interfere. The employee must find out exactly what went wrong and how to detect it the next time, what to do in such a situation and why, and what the result will be. Before his eyes, you must demonstrate this predictable result - only this way authority is achieved.



In all other situations, believe: if you know exactly how to perform this or that ordinary operation best of all, an employee can be assigned to do it (if possible without valuable guidance from your side). He will either cope or not - and then you will be able to show yourself as a good boss, not an ordinary employee.

People are not cars

IT shnik especially characteristic of the attitude towards others, like computers from meat. The computer is designed so that when you give him the same program, it produces the same result. The guys in sweaters tend to expect the same from people, but a person is a living creature living in its volatility (and if we didn’t have this property, you personally would still have diapers, and did not read this article).



Your employees will misinterpret your instructions, show different working capacity on different days, be ill, quarrel, be lazy, change your occupation, squirm and not get enough sleep. These are living people, and this is the element base with which you will soon have to work. Ignoring these superpowers of people will not work - you will have to work directly with every fact of such manifestations, otherwise your department will be threatened. Try to accept and, if possible, love this new aspect of your work.



It is you, and not someone else, who will have to deal with the personal problems of your employees, give or not give time off to someone, scold someone (personally, in the eyes) for jambs and flaws, praise someone (for all honest to the people) for good work, to sort out quarrels and claims, to appoint weekends and working days (and also to how many work on December 31 - and if we work at all), to congratulate on birthdays and weddings, to dismiss - in general, all personnel work is now yours. Find out in advance how all these issues are solved in your company. Think about whether these things were going well, while you were not yet a leader - if something could have been done better, then here it is, your chance to prove yourself. And do not expect that people will be like eight hours each day trying to go on the whole working routine, even if you have taught everyone how to do it. They will find a million reasons to do differently.



To reduce the impact of the human factor on the work of your department, regularly think about automating routine operations.

Count. Write down. Store.

Your boss will be interested in how things are going, and you yourself too. Working in a management position will subject your memory to severe tests - even if you are sure that it did not fail you before, now it is time to find backup options for storing facts.



Oral agreement is not enough. Even if you talked to someone, and you made an exact agreement, and both remember exactly what you agreed on, send an email anyway, with an exact indication of the language you were able to agree on. Be manic with this technique especially when talking to superiors. Talked - realized - email.



If you have thought about something important for yourself, send an email about the results to yourself. If an emergency happens, it will be correct if it is reflected in the relevant magazines, bug trackers, wikis, and so on. Well, or at least in the form of email to yourself. And in general, start keeping a diary of your department - what happened over the past day, week, month, why it is important. In six months you will say thank you.



Sooner or later, you will be required to report - think about which numbers serve as indicators of your work, with the help of which indicators you can see problems in the department. Like a person's temperature: if it is above 37 degrees, it means that it is sick, if it is below 30 or above 42, then it dies. Now think about what you can measure in your work to identify dangerous trends. Start collecting these numbers, even if no one asks for it from you yet - it is better to be able to provide them, than to sit over a sudden report all night with burning pants. Read what KPI is.



Yes, it is unpleasant, but bureaucracy is now part of your work, personally your duty. Again, it can be put on the shoulders of automation, if you yourself know well what and how to record and count. Take some time on automation to save yourself days. Some of these responsibilities can be assigned to your employees, but just think how much bureaucracy you would have suffered as an employee - and by all means try not to exceed this threshold.

"Do not try to hit, and hit."

No matter how good you want to become a leader, you are still as good as you can judge by your department. Things are important, not intentions. No one cares at all what you wanted to do there, what you thought on sleepless nights, what trainings and seminars you attended, what book you read and the videos you watched. Read at least everything in the world, but as long as you do not do anything with your department or do something wrong, your work on yourself is equivalent to the root of minus one.



If fear holds you back, remember that fear is not what is expected of you here. It is terrible for everyone and everyone, and you are the leader. And you decide. A solid solution is your main product at this place. You can be wrong - and then the reporting system and attentive attitude towards you will not allow the error to cause too much damage. Over time, you will learn to look at the root of the reasons that led you to one or another decision, and to work out the right decisions systematically (even if you make them by tossing a coin).



But if you hesitate, hide problems, move away from decisions - you work against yourself and no one will help you.



That's all. I sincerely wish you good luck and prudence.