
Are you a new manager? Congrats! I’m confident that your role so far has been a mix of motivating, curious and surprising. As you find yourself conducting your first round of performance reviews, here are a few key concepts to keep in mind:
Demonstrate the details.
Perhaps you’ve heard of (or even engaged with!) the idea of a listening tour for new leaders. Before busting into the room with new authority, the idea is that you spend your first couple of weeks meeting, listening to and familiarizing yourself with the people and processes around you. Then – and only then – are you able to give critical feedback with earned perspective.
So when you sit down to write performance reviews, this is where you want to demonstrate the details of what you heard. Individual performance reviews should not sound the same. Each person on the team has strengths, skill gaps, backstories and motivations. As a new manager, alluding to these specifics sets you up as an engaged manager.
Example: “I see your passion for getting work across the finish line and how it motivates the team” is more specific than “Makes deadlines, achieves goals.”
Don’t wuss out.
This is your first opportunity to share critical feedback in a standardized fashion… don’t miss it. As a new manager, you may only enjoy sharing positive feedback. Hard conversations are understandably tricky but if you don’t set a precedent now, it’s going get harder and harder to use a critical tone.
Of course I’m not suggesting that you neglect encouraging feedback. Highlighting someone’s achievements and hard work is a testament to your managerial style! But you have to think forward to the next round of performance reviews (or feedback moments). If you don’t demonstrate that you have the capacity to critique now, you’re making it harder on future you.
Example: “I’ve noticed that you’ve struggled with stakeholders on other teams. I’d like to see you take a proactive approach in your communications so that the teams are in sync earlier in the process.”
Delineate between you and the company.
Exciting news: even as a manager, you are not the company. You will certainly represent leadership in many circumstances but performance reviews are a rare opportunity to carefully draw a distinction. Without disrespecting the ecosystem around you, feel free to share your own perspective. Like this:
“So we have to fill these forms out for Human Resources and they require us to use a 1-5 star rating system with short comments. We’re adhering to that but I plan to use that data as a jumping off point. I’m interested in your personal career goals and it’s my job to combine the two conversations.”
See how I’m not throwing anyone under a bus? See how I’m carving out a little space to triangulate me, you and the company? As a new manager, you’re probably following all the rules – as you should! – but the ability to personalize a role that can feel corporate is going to set you up for a long, authentic career managing people.
Finally, reward yourself.
Review season can seem to go on forever. Doing anything for the first time can be challenging and the great news is, you’ve got one performance review season in the can. Once you’ve completed the last one, take a day off (or at least a long lunch). You’ve earned it!
Want to subscribe to Plucky’s monthly newsletter? Give us your deets here: www.beplucky.com/newsletter.