We all had to be a beginner at leadership, and I would argue we should never stop being a beginner.
I think, you know, leadership changes. Leadership changes so often. If you even think just Covid
change the workplace in unimaginable ways, like ways that, yeah, we couldn't even conjure up before
Covid. And that's all happened in the last 5 or 6 years. And so if you're still leading in the same
way you were even 5 or 6 years ago, your leadership is outdated and therefore you're a
beginner again. This is the reason why I called my blog in the making. If you're not subscribed in
the Making Leadership comm, I called it in the making because we are always in the making as
leaders like we should never, ever, ever be the finished article. And I think there is kind of
this like beauty in always wanting to be coached, always wanting to feel like we
have to improve and test out new things, improve our leadership. And so this episode is going to be
the beginner's guide to management, but wherever the hell you are in your leadership role, I think
you can learn lots from today's episode. And hey, by the way, welcome to The Boardroom, the podcast
where we open up all the conversations that normally happen behind those closed boardroom
doors at work. I the place that I wrote the notes for this episode from. And as I said, we never use
scripts, but I always have little bullet points written out so that I can refer to them and make
sure that I'm not just going off on an absolute tangent all episode. But the place that I wrote
these notes from is if I could go back to 21 year old Heather, even like 19 year old Heather, because
I talk about my job a lot. But what I don't talk about is I had a job before that. I was a
supervisor on the Holland and Boro of all places, Holland and Barrett shop floor in Big Market in
Newcastle. Big up. If anyone's ever been there then you'll know that's not really a big flex. But it
was a great place and I yeah, I was a supervisor on the Holland Barrett shop floor and I just wish
if I could go back to me at that, like 19, 20 year old Heather, and hand me like a piece of paper
with just the scribbles on to say, just so you know, here's the things I wish you could know
right now that you're probably only going to learn with experience, but I just wish I could
hand it to you. These would be it. And so this is going to try and encompass like the full
beginning. If we wanted to begin as a manager and be great in a management role, then this is the
episode for you and this will be a great episode. If you are going into a new management role,
you're starting a new business. You're about to step into your first management role. You're going
into a new management role of a new team. You've been promoted, I don't know, or you just want a
refresher and you want to make sure that you are being the best you possibly can be in 2026. This
episode is for you. So the very first place to start is this concept of being an accidental
manager. And I think this plays into imposter syndrome a lot. So people tend to say, you know, we
promote people into management positions, whether it's the first time or the third time. And we're
usually like, they were really good at that one job, that one thing. So we promoted them. But it is
now like a whole new set of skills. You go from managing yourself to having to manage other
people. You go from being an individual contributor where your value is measured by what
you do in a day to your value. Now be measured by the people around you and most new managers mess
it up. We do. I messed it up. I avoided the conversations. I didn't delegate like I messed it
up and I messed it up because no one, I hadn't done the learning yet and no one was really there
to support me. I think the stats are like still only 151 5% of new managers ever get any
training, and we rarely get the support, whether it's psychological support or like actual sort of
coaching courses support. And so if you feel like you've been like thrown into this role and you
feel new, I just want you to know that that's normal, it's okay. And if you feel a sense of
imposter syndrome around, you're about to manage friends, you're about to manage peers, you're about
to manage people who are older than you. All of that is completely normal. No one feels a sense of
calm and complete safety going into that. So that's the first thing just I want you to relax
your shoulders a little bit because you're going to be great. You've been picked for this role
because someone already saw something brilliant in you. You don't have to magically become a new
person overnight. You don't have to, you know, change how you show up, how you speak. You don't
have to all of a sudden become strict or change your tone. You are already enough. It's now just
about as fine tuning some skills. I think when I was in those early years of management roles, I
did always in the back of my mind think I have to be a different person, like I have to be a
stricter version of me, or I have to be a tougher version of me. I have to be someone who never
cries and never gets upset. And when I was working at Harrods, we had, um, one of our shops, so
obviously Harrods is in Knightsbridge, but we had another like shop thing that we used to have to
work in occasionally up in Malabon. And I remember working in the Malabon shop in the first week, and
at lunchtime I was just so it was like my first week I'd fresh new, moved to London. I was feeling
really overwhelmed. I was feeling quite lonely and at lunchtime I just walked off to one of the
parks nearby and I sat at lunch and I just cried into my sandwich because I felt so
exhausted. I felt so lonely at trying to put on this facade of being a completely different
person to who I actually was, and I really wish at that point someone had turned around to me and
just said, Heather, you don't need to prove anything. Of course we need to keep fine tuning
these skills. We need to keep growing ourselves to be brilliant for other people. But we don't have
to be magically someone else overnight. Who you are right now is enough. Something else I really
wish someone had have said to me was leadership is just a set of skills. It is not
charisma. It is not like confidence. You are not born with it. I am a firm believer of you are made.
You're not born with the skills or not the skills. I think. Of course some people have like a leg up.
Maybe they're naturally a bit more confident and out there and therefore they can communicate
their ideas better. But I don't believe from all of my experience and from being the person who
wasn't that wasn't confident, wasn't charismatic, I don't believe leadership is something you're born
with. I think it's a set of skills you have to have the courage to put into place. But it's a
skill set. It's a toolkit. You can learn those things, start practising them, have the courage to
practice them and then become great at it. And so right now, if you're someone who is like looking
at all these leaders around you and you're like, God, I can never be like them, you know, they're so
loud and quick witted and they seem to have an answer for everything. Like I remember, one of my
biggest insecurities was I was worried that I would, you know, if you, like, give someone difficult
feedback and then they come back to you with something like maybe they make an excuse or they
get defensive. I would always think, oh shit. Like, I'm not going to look like a good leader if I
don't have a very quick witted comeback and I can't like back myself. It's almost going to show
that there's holes in my story and I'm not going to know what to do. And it was that that's that's
the type of imposter syndrome. But it was that that was holding me back because I was thinking,
I'm not made for this because I'm not quick and I'm blah, blah, blah, all bollocks. You can
absolutely learn it, practice it, and it does just take the reps. You've got to put the reps in.
You've got to have the courage to implement the skill. And once you've done that, you can be a
great leader, I promise. The first principle of management I want to talk about in this episode
is the principle of moving away from being the doer to the thinker, the director, the
strategic person. I think a trap that a lot of us stay stuck in for so long is we continue because
we were so good at the job. We stay being good at the job. You know, it's like the safe, easy thing to
do. And we also never really hand it over because we're like, we don't want to delegate because
we're like, oh, what if they don't do it as well as me, as fast as me? Whatever. The standards aren't as
high, so we keep on to it. We hold on to it tight. When we first go into a management role, one of
the key principles you have to get your head around is it is no longer about the value you
bring to the table. No longer does it matter, like how many quick tick tasks you get done in a day.
That's not your job anymore. Your job is to multiply the impact of the I don't know, two, three,
ten, 20 people that are in your team. It's to make sure that you, as their leader, create the
conditions that are motivating, that are engaging, that they feel safe in. They feel safe to
experiment. They feel clear, like they have clarity around what they're doing that you know, they can
keep pushing. They can move the team forward with their actions, with their ticking and doing. And I
think the reason a lot of us stay stuck is mainly because of that. Yeah. We've moved from being the
really high achieving individual contributor into this role, usually quite quickly, and you never
take a step back when you're new into that leadership position to go, okay, how do I now
delegate the doing? So I've got time for the leading and time for the strategic stuff. And I
think just to give you some like practical tips of how I've done this is just being so ruthless
with delegating, like making sure that you never just fall back on the idea of I'll just do it
myself, like always, even when it feels like so painful because you think, I literally could do
this in 20s and it'd be done making sure you take time to delegate. And when you do delegate, take
time to explain the context and the purpose behind that task so that your team can start to
connect the dots and really understand why it's important. And they can like, add their own spin on
it. That's one of the best ways that you're going to free up your own time. And also moving into
coaching and not just fixing so you never want to become the type of manager who is just the fixer.
You you know, you never want to be the type of manager where your team just come to you with. Hi.
I need this question answering quick question. Can you tell me this? Will you just become again like
an information shifter? And your team never learn to think for themselves? Of course we want to
support our team. Like, of course, you know, we want to help get them the information that they need.
But when we get asked a question, if they truly, because our team have come to us for support, try
and coach them instead of just fix it. So instead of just giving them the answer straight away, try
asking them questions. What do you think we could have done here? How could you know? Where could we
find this information? What do you think the best outcome is? And if they truly don't know, then take
the time to explain your thinking behind it instead of just telling them what to do. Like, look,
this is where my thinking would go. This is where I'd start to look. This is the YouTube videos I
would watch. This is the podcast I would listen to. I don't know, this is how I would find the answer
and just make sure you're not just giving doing the lazy thing, which is to answer and fix
immediately. That's how we're going to move into that. Like more strategic non-dual mode. Something
else I wish that maybe me crying into my sandwich in the Malabon park. I wish that someone had
actually slapped me around the face and said this to me. Stop trying to win the
approval. Start trying to win the respect. I wish someone had said that to me. Stop trying to win
the approval. Start trying to earn the respect. Because in leadership, truthfully, guys like
not everyone is going to like what you've got to say. You've got to make decisions that not
everyone's going to like. You've got to relay information that not everyone is going to like.
You have got to be quick. You've got to hold the standard. You've got to hold people accountable.
You've got to inspire people. You've got to sometimes get people to do things that they don't
want to do, and you've got to do those things as well yourself. And I think the longer we just try
to be liked and play that game of how do I win friends? How do I, you know, you know, like just get
as many like, tokens in my pocket as possible. The further down the line we push the opportunity to
build respect because those tough calls, those hard decisions that we have to make are usually
the ones that people need. And even though it might piss them off in the moment, they might need
it in the long run. And it also, I just always am really wary of people who don't have a backbone.
It used to be cute and fun and like, you know, people who would just say yes to everything and
be really helpful all the time and keep everything moving really fast. Now I'm just wary
of those people because I'm like, but what? What's what do you stand for? Because if you don't stand
for anything, you will fall for anything. And, you know, are you? Then I guess if you're just saying
yes to me, are you actually standing up for me in front of other groups, you know, are you going to
your seniors and standing up for me there, or are you just saving face and kind of standing down
when you get there too. So we have to move from people pleasing and even just having difficult
conversations. Such an important skill. You're going to have to learn as a manager, and we'll
talk about it properly in a second. But having difficult conversations will not win you the
approval. You're not going to be liked if you have difficult conversations with people. It's not nice.
It's it's not fun. People don't want to hear it, but it will win you the long term respect when
people know where they stand with you. And this is bringing me into difficult conversations. So I
wish, wish, I wish, I wish, I wish someone had whacked me around the head with this one. Let's
say those difficult conversations that you're avoiding. Heather, 19 year old Heather, the small
ones like people saying slightly unnecessary things, or people turning up just
slightly late to their shift, or people's work just being slightly subpar. Those small mini
conversations that you're avoiding are going to come back to haunt you in just a couple of months
time when people leave because they see that you're not dealing with a toxic performer because
nothing loses you great employees faster than them watching you tolerate a bad one, and you're
currently tolerating the bad one. And this is going to cost you a lot in the future. Or, you know,
like avoiding those small, difficult conversations about someone else's attitude or someone else's
performance because we think they're going to get defensive, they're going to come back and argue
with me. But it's still a conversation that needs to be had and I'm still going to hold my ground.
So this is something we have to learn when we're new to leadership. The quicker you can
stop avoiding that conflict in those difficult conversations, the better the better of a leader
you're going to become. And I know the easiest thing for us all to do is avoid them. The easiest
thing is, yeah, just to push them down the line. None of us like conflict, but we have to. It's so
important. We just have to have to have them. And that will also build your respect too. Now let's
talk about some of the more practical parts of management. So. Clarity. Now I say clarity because
your team have to all be so clear on exactly what it is that makes them successful. Whether it's
through roles and responsibilities docs, whether it's through a really clear set of KPIs. As a
leader, it is your job to make sure that our team feel so clear on exactly what it is that makes
them successful and what they should be working on day to day. Now, what I do with the team, um, in
our we've only got a small team. So what I do with the team right now is make sure that everyone. So
you know, when you have like, the job ads. So when I ever ask managers if they have roles and
responsibilities in their team, they always say to me, oh, well, kind of. I've got like a job ad, um, you
know, that we used and that's kind of exists maybe from last year. So the job ads a good place to
start because that's the role that you hired for. That's the roles and responsibilities that you
hired for. The problem is that will change. It will shift and change over the months and years that
people are with you and that role will change their responsibilities. Their pay will change
where they fit in. The team will change their skills, their confidence in certain things, etc.
and so the best way to manage this, what I do now is we have the roles and responsibilities job ad
for the first three months when they're being onboarded, we work towards training them up in
everything that's within that job ad. So that kind of is like a reference point for their training
when we when they finish their onboarding. So they get three months in. The idea is now they own
their roles and responsibilities doc. So it's now theirs to own. And every three months when we do
our 90 day one on one, we sit together and that we look at that roles and responsibilities, doc. And
we go, okay, what's changed? What needs adding in, what needs removing? How has your role grown?
What do we need to take away from you? Because it's getting too much. What should we upskill you
in a little bit more. And this creates clarity. And at the top of those docs are the way that I lay
out my roles and responsibilities. Docs is at the top. You want purpose? Purpose? I always start with
purpose. Start with the why? We start with the context. The purpose is always, well, I guess just
what is the purpose of this role. And it's it tends to be like a quite inspiring statement or
paragraph to say this is the reason this role exists within the business. This is what you're
driving. Then you want a list of success measures. So this person is successful in their role. If
they do x, y and z and the success measures, they don't have to be like full blown KPIs, numbers,
etc. they can just be like the standards of social media are kept high. The standard of our
culture is kept high, like having these high standards in certain areas. Then you would
probably have a list of KPIs, and then underneath that you would have a list of their roles and
responsibilities. So the actual things that they do and then every three months you want to review
that with them to make sure that it's staying in line, to make sure that, you know, you're not adding
bloat in. And it just helps create that clarity. And then you can also create clarity, Obviously
with your meeting with them. So with like doing your KPI meetings and etc. but it's just very
hard, I think, for the whole system of managing a team to work, as in people like push in towards
targets and trying hard and experimenting and being fulfilled and challenged etc. if they don't
know exactly what makes them successful. And maybe this is my like, I don't know, micromanager control
freak brain. That's like we have to have clarity over everything. But what I've learned over the
last ten years is it creates like a real sense of camaraderie. Like, people know what what
their part is in the team, what role they play, how their role fits into and improves the team
drastically. And so find a way to get people clarity as much over their role as much as you
possibly can. Now, we can't talk about being a manager without talking about one on ones we all
love one on ones, so one on ones. Okay. Ah, everyone has their own different way of doing it. Some
people don't do them at all, so managers don't do them at all. Now, for me, the one on one system is
so powerful and important because it does. It's so many different things I could talk about here, but
like it shows your team that you care. It shows. It shows your team that you're listening, that you
are carving out time in your week and your month and your whatever to ask them questions about
them and write those things down, and then go and do something about those things, like whether it's,
you know, sometimes it's them that needs to put the actions into place. Now, for the purpose of
this episode, I'm going to give you my kind of overarching layout for one on ones and how I run
them, but I'm also going to put a link in the show notes to go and download. I have like a PDF. It's
completely free. You can go download it. That just lays out like my exact one on one framework and
all the agendas with the exact questions that I use. It's so good, and I'm not going to go through
all of it for the purpose of today, I'm going to just give you a real like lay of the land. So some
big mistakes that managers make with one on ones are cancelling them are not just shutting up and
listening to your team like you need to actually give them space. Not preparing. So like not
bringing the right questions to make sure we point them in the right direction, we often just
turn them into like a status update. And all of this can be avoided by just having a really
simple, brilliant written down system. So my system is every fortnight. I have a 20 minute meeting
with every member of the team that we don't have an agenda for, so that is just a space for them to
bring whatever they need, whatever support they want from me and if I need anything from them,
it's just a really important space that's held in that space essentially replaces the um. My door is
always open because I think traditionally we've been like, oh, my door is always open, doors is open.
But actually, like, it's not unless people feel super safe and carve out the time to come
and give you the feedback and get the support, which just it's hard for them to do. Then they
won't do it. I think we have to carve out that space to make sure they have time for it. And it
just sort of signals like, I'm listening. It signals. As a manager, I'm listening to you and I
want to hear what you've got to say. Then every 90 days I do like a more in-depth one on one with
them. So this is the one that I've got an agenda for. You can find the free download in the show
notes, but every 90 days I spend 90 minutes with them asking them some deeper questions. So things
like what is your biggest fear right now? Things like, if you were to hand your notes in tomorrow,
why would it be? And a lot of people. Some people find those questions a bit weird. Whenever I post
about this on the internet, I get lots of comments on TikTok. They're like, I hate managers who try
too hard. Like, just let me do my job. I don't want to tell you what my biggest fear is, but 99% of
people who use it have really positive feedback from their team, and they're like,
finally, my team are happy that I'm asking them the right questions, that I'm giving them the
opportunity to tell me these things. And guys like, if your team don't want to answer the question,
they don't have to. If they, you know, if you say, what is your biggest fear right now, they don't
have to go on a deep, dark route of telling you like what they're truly fearing. They could just
say, oh, I'm a bit worried about, you know, this new task that I've got to do. Like, they can go as deep
or as surface level as they want to. It's completely on them. The questions like open up
loads of room and availability for if they want to go really deep, which a lot of people do, you'll
find, I think you'll find a lot of them do. Or if they want to stay more surface level. And then I
also the last one to mention is just I make sure we have an annual salary review, which goes
without saying, just even if it's, you know, even if you're in a business where you can't give huge
salary reviews right now, just still have the review, like, still speak to them, still open up the
conversation about their salary. Don't avoid it just because you can't put it up. Like hear them
out. Listen to it. Even if you can't do something about it, still give them the opportunity to talk
to you about it. Because the thing is that they're talking about it. They're talking about it to
their friends, to their family, potentially to their other colleagues. so make the space for them
to talk about it to you, even if it feels negative and awkward because you can't do anything about
it. At least you're on the front foot with having that conversation, and you're able to very clearly,
transparently say to them, look, I'm going to push for you. I'm going to advocate you as best as I
can. But just so you know, like we're struggling with this across the board, and then you keep the
conversation with them and not just, you know, turn it into gossip. Then after one on ones, one of the
next super practical things is delegation. Delegation. I spoke about this a little bit
earlier, but it's just I think this is such an underrated skill. Like, I think managers never
quite learn fully delegation. And I might have to do a full episode on delegation at some point,
because I think it is one of like the skills over the years that I would say I've honed to the
point where it's like one of my most powerful skills is using delegation as a way to inspire
people. I think a lot of people, a lot of us tend to think we hand tasks off and it's going to
annoy people. It's going to piss them off because they've got more to do and they've already got so
much to do. But using the frameworks above, things like one on ones so you can find out if they're
annoyed using the roles and responsibilities docks for clarity. So if we are giving them too
much, we can remove things. Delegation then, is just another wonderful piece of the puzzle to say.
Actually, you have skills here, so I'm going to grow your skills by delegating this thing to you
and then we can. If it's too much, we can remove something else that's less of a priority.
Delegation. I'm not going to tell you every corner of delegation right now. I'm going to do a
separate episode, or actually, I've got a YouTube video and delegation. That's brilliant. If you want
to go over to leadership, Heather YouTube, go watch that. But for the purpose of today, the most
important thing to know about delegation is see it as an investment of your time. You are buying
back your time in the future and use the context and purpose. Explain. Take as much time as you need
to explain the purpose and the context of delegation to your team member, so that they can
connect it to the bigger picture. They can take some ownership and accountability then of how the
how like how they actually want to, um, do that. Like put that task into place. Then the final
thing that I wish someone had said to me is holding people accountable is tough, as in like
holding standards. You know, if someone drops us, drops below the line, drops a standard, and you
have to hold them accountable. It is tough. It can feel tough because it feels like, you know, it
starts at the point where you're like putting your foot down. This is the job, and holding people
accountable is kind of holding people to high standards is kind. The moment that you let those
standards slip, whether it's by allowing others to let their standards slip or your own standards
slip in, is the moment you kind of signal, okay, we tolerate this now, like your team will do as you
do. They won't do as you say. And so accountability holding people accountable. And if accountability
feels hard right now Just default to questions. Ask questions. That's what I always say. If you
know if someone's dropped the mark with a KPI, someone's dropped the mark with a standard, ask
them questions. How are we going to make sure this doesn't happen again? How are we going to make
sure that this is up to standard next time? Because I see accountability is almost like this
physical thing where at the minute I have it and I want to pass it over to someone else. So if I
want someone else to be accountable, I need to hold them accountable using my questions instead
of telling them what to do. And I think accountability is one of the most complex parts
of management. You could Google any of the other topics we've been talking about today, like
feedback and, you know, one on ones and you could find other thoughts on it. Accountability is one
that not many people have dug into yet, because not many people have got it right. It's a really
tough one, and I think it is like, I never like to say the word expert with leadership, but if there
was any time to say, it would be now like to become an expert in leadership, it's knowing how
and when to properly hold your team accountable, because a lot of us, we love to give people slack
and we love to, you know, like drop our standards because it just feels easier and more comfortable
in the moment. But so yeah, accountability is a tough one, but it's something we have to do as a
new manager, as a fresh manager or someone who wants a refresher just gets so, so, so good at. So
I'm going to leave it there. There's so much honesty. I could go on for hours and hours about
things. I wish that I knew that I could just slap 19 year old me around the face with, but I'm gonna
leave it there. Let me know in the comments. What do you think? What do you wish someone could tell
you as a new manager? Like what is that one bit of advice that you've maybe heard that's really
helped? Um, because there's lots I know there's going to be lots of brand new managers listening
to this, and we can all learn from each other in the comments. So let me know. And as always, if
you're not subscribed, if you're not following along, please, please follow along. It means the
world to us. Thank you so much.