Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Over 800 people have taken my workshop for new managers over the last couple of years and this podcast is a way for me to share what I have been learning as I have been teaching and working with people about becoming new managers and also this is for my students who take my workshop and they want to remember what was that Insight or? Oh how You explain this one thing again or I want to remember how to bring this topic
into this different situation. And so this is for you. I want to talk about the two key skills that you need. As you move into leadership as you become a manager and this is true whether you currently have direct reports whether you manage by influence. You might be an office manager, you might be a project manager. You might be a product manager or an executive assistant, or anyone who does not have someone
directly reporting to you. But as a practical matter, you have to manage people in order to do your job and also for people who don't manage people yet. But you know, that's the next step for you and you're wanting to begin to learn the skills and develop your mindset so that you're ready for when you That to that news new place. It comes down to these two simple things. Number one self awareness. Number two, communication. Now these are two topics that you could study for the rest of
your life and never be done. Just to give you some perspective, okay? Self-awareness is something that you don't just, learn it in a weekend, you don't just, you know, learn it from a single class or from A single book.
It really is this ongoing relationship with you and your life and the way that you experience and perceive it the way that you understand who you are, how you are, how you show up in the world, what your preferences and tendencies are, and communication is about how you relate with others. How do you listen to others? How are you present with others? How do you convey this? In or information or a desire, or a request or a correction, how do you have difficult
conversations? How do you give feedback? How do you take feedback? It's this really diverse realm of communication and again, it's not a thing that you learn in a day or a weekend. It really is a practice that you cultivate and use over the course of your life. Now, the really good news is that You already have a deep practice in self-awareness and communication although it might exist a little bit below the level of your conscious mind.
And by that, I mean you are already living your life and successfully. I might add you have successfully lived to be a functioning adult in the world with other people and that requires bye. Fault. A measure of self-awareness and a measure of communication. But what begins to change as you step into a manager role and you begin to ask yourself, how do I manage people effectively? What is the skill of how to do that? You realize, okay, now I need to
deepen my self awareness. Oh, and now I need to expand and refine. And my communication skills because it just requires a different level of application in the world. Now when you think about self-awareness, what's really cool is that as you become more aware for yourself? For example, am I'm more of an introverted person or an extroverted person. Am I more of a maker creative type? Or am I more of a Visionary? Am I more of an Relations
person. Do I like to be more systems thinking or do I like to really immerse myself in the craft of the creative nature of a thing? The more that you begin to understand about yourself, how you tend to operate, what you tend to prefer, how you like to be treated, what feels like respect to you. Personally, even as simple as are you a morning person or Or are you more energized in the evening as you become more aware of how you are?
You begin to understand. Oh, not all people are like me, it seems obvious but I tell you there's so much friction and so much frustration that arises because we have this in like this very internal expectation that other people are like me or they should be like me and it's just this natural. Preference for ourselves. It's kind of baked into us as
humans, that's not a problem. But when you begin to realize, oh I have these preferences, I have these priorities, I have these values, I have these Tendencies and other people have their own, and they might differ from me, and that's okay. Because if you understand that other people very, and might differ that, Then can shape the way you communicate and lead and manage them if you begin to understand. Oh, my team has a very different need than I do.
In terms of when they like to do their most creative work or my person that reports to me, they really prefer communication through this channel rather than that channel. They'd rather have me message. Through slack, instead of an email or they would rather me pick up the phone or they would rather me schedule a call as you begin to understand. Other people have different preferences. Other people are different than me and that's okay.
Then you start to get curious about, okay, given that this is. So how can I work with these people? As they are and you stop taking it. Personally, when people are different Then how you are because this is another thing to as a human.
We take things really personally and we assume that if things aren't going our way, it's because there's something wrong with the other person or that they're doing something intentionally to frustrate, or disappoint us that that's a very, very common experience that we have. So self-awareness learn and become more aware of how you are. Because that, then allows you to Stan, do others are different, and that's okay.
And when I see that clearly, then I can lead and manage and communicate much more effectively. This, by the way, is also why it's so popular in the business world to use tools like mbti, right? Like the Myers-Briggs type indicator or the disk method or any of the other personality or type tools there Are all tools to try to help us understand how our our Tendencies. What is the the way that we most like to operate and work and understanding that others very and are different.
And then we can begin to ask better questions about how can we all work together in a way that really serves our strengths and doesn't put us into a situation where there's a lot of conflict or people are not using their talent and skill and energy. G in the most effective way, that's the self-awareness part. The communication part is.
So is so important. It is the fastest way to build trust and the fastest way to break it relationships often break because of messy communication of poor communication of an inability or unwillingness. Willingness to listen rather than to Simply a search or to demand. And so communication becomes this thing that as you continue to learn and use different skills around communication that helps you to build more effective relationships. That helps boost morale.
That helps people feel respected appreciated supported so that they're more fully engaged. Present at work and it makes your life easier to as this podcast unfolds. I'll talk more about each of these different dimensions, communication and self-awareness, but just for right now, I want you to know that these are the two main categories that all of the other skills really fall into.
And if you look at all of the books out there and all of the trainings and all of the different ways that you can, Grow as a manager. And as a leader, most of the time, they'll fall under one of those two categories. How can you understand yourself better? How can you understand your people better? So that you relate with them in the most useful way. And also, how can you communicate effectively? How can you have a difficult conversation?
How can you listen better? How can you speak to upper management in the most effective? Way, how do you on board in the most effective way? How do you convey the expectations and the goals and the kpis? And then how do you deal and communicate with people when they're falling short of where they need to be or where you want them to be. All of that comes under these two, simple things communication and self-awareness. So that is what I wanted to
share with you today. I'm really glad that you got to listen to this and come back next time as we keep exploring. What is it mean to be a great manager? And whether that means that you are new to managing people, or you just want a new perspective and some new ideas. All of that is what I'm here for and I'm glad you're here to buy. If you know, it's time to level Laughs. But you feel your perfectionism Self Doubt and uncertainty getting in the way then come work with me.
We'll have six months of one-on-one coaching and it all starts by going to my website. Kim nickel.com coaching and joining my waitlist talk to you soon.