4 Mistakes That Managers Make When Starting Out
Nobody is perfect and it is important to learn from mistakes. This also applies to newly appointed chiefs.
He accepted a promotion to sales manager. He quickly discovered that his predecessor was neglecting digital transformation, which was having a negative impact on the team’s performance. Tony (name changed) therefore began pestering his immediate superior for funds for the necessary IT implementations. However, he kept replying that this was an unnecessary luxury. After three months of fruitless efforts, Tony gave up and focused all his energy on motivating people to work harder and harder. He had a reason to keep trying: Joan, the department director, had given him just one year to improve the team’s performance. Unfortunately, Tony exaggerated his demands and ended up burning out two of his best sales representatives, who left the company. At the same time, his team was failing to meet even minimum sales targets.
The trial year passed. Joan lost patience with Tony and fired him, justifying the decision with declining sales and declining morale among the salespeople. Receiving his notice of termination, Tony claimed that it was not he who deserved to be sacked, but his immediate supervisor who had opposed the investment in a modern CRM system. However, the…
