Are You Promoting A Team Member Into Management?

By Kym Krey

You have a long-term employee who’s been your right-arm for years. They’re responsible, reliable and you think they’d make a great Salon Manager (Plus… you’re more than ready to step back and reduce your workload or focus more on the business than on the floor)

Fantastic! This sounds like a great opportunity for you both. It’s a big step and it has the potential to completely change your business (and your life!)… but it’s also fraught with peril, misunderstanding and frustration if we don’t get it right.

The transition into a first-time management role is rarely a smooth one.

Here’s how we THINK it’s going to go: You’re going to write a shiny new job description with a list of tasks and responsibilities that they’ll take over from now on. They’ve been here for years, they know how things are done, so with a quick meeting to define responsibilities and a bit of encouragement, they’ll be on their way, and you’ll be booking your first holiday in years.

They’ll use their initiative to handle minor issues that arise and be proactive in nipping things in the bud early. They’ll see a problem and deal with it.

In around 12 months from now, you’ll barely need to show your face in the business. You’ll have freedom to work from home, come and go as you please, become the successful business owner you’ve always wanted to be and have a business that runs without you.

Take a seat…. this is where things can get a little bumpy….

How it ACTUALLY goes:

1. They crumble. You prep your new manager on what to say to get the team them excited ahead of your team meeting to announce the promotion. And when their moment arrives, they speak nervously, avoiding eye contact and reading from notes the whole time. Their tone is flat, shaky, and monotone, and no one here is inspired.

You can see your staff fidgeting, you catch the looks darting across the room and sense their doubt creeping in. That wasn’t the positive start you were hoping for. Will they hold any authority at all with the team? Will your staff listen and follow? Are you going to have to be here the whole time because your staff will keep coming to you?

2. They’re hesitating and avoiding: You notice a staff member ‘going rogue’; not following a process…. and you see your manager do absolutely nothing about it! They’ve undercharged a client, or not checked in before completely changing their client’s service plan which throws the whole team under a bus for the rest of the day and means you’re all getting out late.

Or they’ve stood there, blankly, while a staff member sarcastically ‘answers back’, pushes back or refuses a clear request…. but does absolutely nothing to correct it. Or worse….

crumbles into a helpless, submissive ‘victim’, right before your eyes, giving all power and authority to the errant employee. You can see exactly what’s going to happen from here on. Chaos!

Staff 1: Manager 0

3. Things aren’t being done. You’ve allocated them time off the floor to complete their ‘management tasks’, hold one-onones, prepare meetings etc, but they’re still not being done. They just ‘didn’t get time’ because they’ve been ‘so busy’!

You’re running out of stock, morning huddles aren’t happening every day and big things are slipping through the cracks. They’re constantly in a frazzle, and letting you know how late they stayed back yesterday and how they’re coming in early every day or working on their days off, but they’re barely getting done half of what you used to do in far less time!

What on earth are they doing? Why can’t they get things done?

4. Results are slipping. You’re watching as retail results and rebooking percentages steadily decline. You’ve talked it through and guided your new manager in what to say, how to address these issues, but you’re being met with: “I said that to her, but she doesn’t listen!

She just says that she asks every client and can’t help it if they don’t say yes!’

You can’t believe it. You’d never let these excuses fly and you can’t understand why they are. What happened to all their confidence? They’re a SUPERSTAR at hitting their own KPIs, so why can’t they coach other staff to do it? You can’t just sit on the sidelines and watch it all fall apart; you’ve spent years building this business!

Now, you’re paying them a Manager’s wage but they’re not getting a Manager’s results!

They showed so much promise! How could it all go so wrong?

First of all, let’s get real.

• They’re a management ‘newbie’! You’ve taken YEARS to build your knowledge, judgement, and skills. They’re just at the start of that journey. You can’t compare their understanding on day 1 with yours 10 years down the track.

• The transition may need to be gradual. It’s unlikely that you’ll hand them the keys today and jet off to Hawaii tomorrow. You may be better to ease them into the role in stages over 3 months, slowly adding more responsibilities as they master the initial ones and get used to managing the ‘juggle’ of adding their new tasks to a busy day on the floor.

Start with small tasks (managing appointments, morning huddles, stock management) and gradually build to the more challenging, like performance reviews and accountability conversations with staff. The massive shift in mindset and responsibility is big enough without having them feel overwhelmed by the 2-page list of extra things they now have to learn to do.

Over 50% of all first-time management promotions are considered unsuccessful for this reason and almost 1/3 end up leaving the business with their confidence in tatters. Not because they weren’t capable of doing the role, but because they felt ‘thrown in the deep end’ and completely overwhelmed, working harder than ever before but feeling like they were failing every day.

• They’re going to make mistakes and that’s part of the deal. Don’t panic and decide that they’re just not ‘cut out for management’. Expect it and accept it. Step in when needed and respectfully deal with the issues whilst maintaining their authority as manager in front of your team. Discuss the issues with them privately, get the learnings, clarify processes and expectations, check for understanding and go again. Teach them how to be a manager in those situations by your example. This is exactly how you strengthen your processes – by ‘closing loopholes’ and adding detail when mistakes happen.

The worst thing you can do is ‘abandon’ them when they don’t immediately get it right, (but if the same mistakes continue or they’re just not stepping into authority after a few months, have a conversation and review. Not everyone makes a great manager)

• This is a huge identity shift: It may take them a while to embrace their identity as an authority after years of being a willing ‘helper’ or 2IC. So many heart-centred creatives struggle with this. They love the idea of career progression and recognition, but when it comes to correcting a team member or setting a healthy boundary, they fall victim to ‘I don’t like conflict’, ‘I don’t want to upset them’. The outcome? They’re ineffective and their staff run the show.

The solution? Refining their perception of leadership away from ‘I need to be a tyrant who crushes people’ to ‘I will be their biggest support and cheerleader, but we play within these lines’. ‘I’m all about excellence and I have a responsibility to ensure we achieve X. Here’s what that means I need from you’.

You can have fun with people, and also correct something immediately when needed. Their team members are their former work buddies. They don’t want to lose those ‘friendships’ but they’ll likely need help redefining what they’ll now look like at work.

• Communicate, communicate, communicate: Begin this process with an honest conversation about their goals and expectations as well as yours. What are they most looking forward to? What scares them? Where do they think they’ll need your support to succeed?

When things go well, talk about it. When things go pear-shaped, talk about it. In fact, prioritise time every week to sit down and talk about the good, the bad and the ugly. (Not between clients or in the back room. Get away from the business so you’re not interrupted) These are the conversation that will clarify their understanding, smooth off the rough edges and literally shape your new manager.

They will be who you guide and shape them to be.

• They may do it differently to you. If you’ve chosen someone with a very different personality type to you, be prepared that they won’t mimic your methods. Whilst they may have been the perfect support or 2IC for you, the Robyn to your Batman, they won’t magically change personalities with the change of role.

You’ve chosen a quieter, laid back personality because it worked well with your loud, more dominant nature, or a task-oriented, detail-focused person because you weren’t great with the details, so they’ll still be that person!

Expecting them to now suddenly become a charismatic, confident, and engaging leader might be quite unrealistic, and more than a little unfair. They’ll find their own way in time.

• Invest in their development. Leadership is not an easy gig and often comes as a rude shock for someone accustomed to achieving things easily as an individual. Getting others to achieve those same results is a totally different skill! Even the most talented staff will need support to make this transition well, so be prepared to invest in ongoing training, mentorship, and coaching. If you’ve tried everything and it’s not going well, reach out for that support to help you get on track and speed the process up.

• Celebrate their successes. Naturally, you’re going to see what doesn’t happen more easily, but make a concerted effort to notice when they get it right as well. Acknowledging them as well when a team member has a PB result or hits a target for the first time gives them the sense of reward and achievement they were so used to getting as an employee hitting their individual target.

Now that they’re assessed on what their staff produce, they also need to be acknowledged, rewarded, and incentivised on what their staff produce. If their bonus/commission is still paid on their individual targets, you’re teaching them to keep doing the work themselves, rather than developing their team and passing a lot of that work onto them so the whole team can grow.

Overall, accept that this is a longer-term game: a marathon not a sprint. If you get this right, you just might have that holy grail of a profitable business that runs without you being chained to the chair, knowing that it’s in great hands with someone you’ve nurtured and supported into the role.

But great managers like that don’t just land on your doorstep. Even if they’ve managed salons before or even owned their own business, very few arrive with the right balance of people and performance and the skills to inspire others to stretch for their best.

You’ll need to make the investment to bring the puzzle pieces of their skills, gifts, and experiences together to create the best manager they can be. They’re a work-inprogress under your guidance.

The transition from employee to first-time manager is one of the toughest transitions they’ll ever make, but we can unwittingly make it a lot worse by adding the pressures of unrealistic expectations and frustrations. Most genuinely want to do a great job for you. If they’re not, take a moment to ask yourself, “What do they need to know or understand to be able to do this well?”

And if you’d like the guidance of someone who has walked this path many times, I’m here to help.

Kym Krey is a true Manager’s mentor. She excels in the area of developing emerging leaders, helping them find their confidence and hit their stride as they achieve real results. She’ll show you how to build positive, productive relationships, clarify expectations and instil accountability, plus tackle those tricky conversations that we tend to avoid! Reach out at kym@kymkrey. com.au to find the right solution for your business.