This is episode 291 and we’re going to talk about the benefits of new manager training and what you might be underestimating.

Here are the two questions. This podcast answers. One, how do you successfully transition into your first official leadership role? And two, how do you keep climbing that leadership ladder and continuously get promoted, 

although the competition and the expectations get bigger. This show with a manager track podcast will provide the answers. I’m your host, Ramona Shaw. 

I’m on a mission to create workplaces where work is seen as a source of contribution, connection and personal fulfillment. And this transition starts with developing a new generation of leaders who know how to lead. So everyone wins and gross. In the show, you’ll learn how to think, communicate and act as a confident and competent leader. 

 You can be. 

Welcome back to The Manager Track podcast. Today I wanna dive into a topic that I am really passionate about, and this is the transition into leadership. Most people don’t realize how much changes when you get that promotion.

Being promoted in itself doesn’t actually mean you’re prepared. It means people see potential in you. They see that you have leadership capacity, that you have maybe skills that are conducive to being a good leader. Many times. Also, they just think that you are the best in whatever you’ve been doing as an individual contributor, which is a very different skillset in fact than leadership skills are.

So being promoted does not mean being prepared and so I wanna talk about what you might be underestimating. Throughout this journey, this transition, which I think is one of the biggest transitions, if not the biggest transition that we go through in our careers.

Now, I am. Not just saying this, based on my own experience of transitioning into leadership, which is definitely harder than I ever thought, but also based on working with hundreds of new and first time managers who have gone through our training programs or have gone through seminars, trainings, one-on-one coaching.

With me or with our company are cova and there are very clear patterns that emerge. And I wanna share some of those with you today. So I hope that as we go through this episode, you start to realize that what you might have thought as, okay, that’s just something that I learned on the job or Sure. That comes with experience, is actually something that you can learn, practice,

and get significantly better at, because here’s important fact. 60% of new managers underperform in their first two years on the job. That’s a staggering number. It basically means the odds are stacked against you and underperforming the first two years doesn’t just mean oh, okay, great, you’ve got a, got more to learn. No. During that time, you are eroding trust.

You are hurting relationships. You are making the team less productive and efficient. You’re building a reputation that’s not helpful. So a lot of things are at stake that you might not realize until it’s already too late. And then to recover from that is really tricky. And in fact, in most cases where too much has been eroded over time, people realize

i’m not gaining the respect, I’m not gaining the opportunities to continue to be promoted. And they’ll ultimately leave that job and try to start over elsewhere. And I often get calls from people who say, can we do some coaching?

Can I train your training because I am doing this for the second time around. I don’t wanna repeat the same mistakes. I really wanna set myself up for success now. And so we wanna talk about what does this look like? What are actually some maybe of the underestimated things that can happen? So you have your eyes wide open as you go through this transition.

Whether you are someone who is about to transition into leadership, or you are already in the midst of that transition, and in the first, let’s say, few months, year, maybe even two or three years into it, there’s still a lot to learn. It could also be that you are supporting other managers to go through that transition, and so this information will really help you prepare them better for what’s to come.

Okay, so let’s dive right in. Imagine that first Monday after your promotion and you get to the job

and you’re now supposed to lead that team. Suddenly you’re supposed to know how to lead people, right? How to give feedback, how to delegate, and somehow, probably also still do some of the icy work, the work you’ve done in the past. And that can be either pretty overwhelming or we can also have this overconfidence that yeah, All of that will just be fine. So I’ve seen both scenarios happen and both of them are dangerous or risky. Either this insecurity of oh my gosh, I have no clue what I need to do, how to do this. Everyone around be patient with me.

I’m gonna figure this out. I’m gonna do a lot of it wrong. These. Insecure thoughts and then behaviors that may show up as a result of that can really erode some of that leadership. But on the other side, the overconfidence as to this is all going to beaches fine. I am great at my job. I like my coworkers.

What can happen or what could go wrong here? That approach is also a problem. So what I decided to do here, different from previous episodes on this particular topic of transitioning to leadership, which we will link in the show notes.

If you’re curious, in this particular episode, I actually wanna use what. People who’ve gone through our leadership accelerated training have said about their transformation, and so I’m gonna give you a summary of the main themes and patterns that occurred, and then structure it in a way that helps you understand what you might be underestimating.

So one manager described this perfectly when they said they were juggling a full workload, like their own IC work. They were mentoring others. They were training for their new role and they were also trying to learn their leadership skills.

And all of that happened at the same time. And they realized that if a week or two in what is hitting them and what’s coming their way, and how much this is different from what their job was even just two weeks ago, and the immediate reaction was to be completely overwhelmed.

But what really helped them get through this is access to structured leadership training that gave them the frameworks that they needed when everything else seemed chaotic. Imagine being in this situation, you’re drowning in the day to day, right? Meetings and work that’s coming your way. You might be covering your old job and your new job, and. At the same time, all these things that you don’t yet know about and you don’t know what you’re doing and how to do it.

Having this dedicated space each week to step back and actually develop your leadership skills. That becomes an anchor that actually becomes this like important structure when everything else seems unsure, ambiguous, or chaotic. It’s a bit like if you wanna go to the gym more often, or let’s say you wanna get better at playing golf or tennis or whatever that might be, and you hire a coach who meets you at 5:00 PM on Friday nights on the tennis court, you are going to be there and you are going to show up.

Your fullest attention during that one hour slot. When you’re right there with that tennis coach and you start to notice that after every session you, your confidence gets a bit of a boost. You feel better, you feel more competent, and you’re realizing that no matter what else is happening throughout the week, you’re actually progressing on that goal because you have the dedicated hour right there.

There’s no negotiating around that. Someone’s waiting on the tennis court for you. Or a personal trainer is waiting at the gym or someone on the golf course, whatever that is for you. This is very similar When we go through structured leadership training like we do in the leadership accelerator is exactly this.

We build in a one hour call. Every single week where people from different organizations come together for an hour to talk about a particular leadership skill. And that structure is what creates competence. It’s what creates more confidence, and it’s helping people see. Even through the chaos and even through the challenges, they’re actually building skills and they know what to focus on.

It’s not overwhelming, like everything at the same time and reactive to whatever might be going on. The program is structured in a way where they know exactly what they need to focus on in the first week, second and third, because the skills are building on top of each other. Someone else mentioned, how important it was for them that they felt really heard in those calls and were able to express their thoughts and their challenges and get help with those, and this is the kind of real time guidance and support that’s personalized that you get right there, that you wouldn’t get. Listening to even this podcast, any other podcast, a YouTube video or reading a book.

So the benefit here isn’t just learning theories, which you can absolutely do reading a book, but it’s having real and tangible guidance on day-to-day issues because of this very structured approach to your leadership training. So when you’re facing a difficult conversation, let’s say on a Tuesday, and you have a coaching session on Thursday.

You can actually work through that scenario either before you have the call or after the call to debrief and reflect on it. And that is when the training is not just about knowing, but also about doing. And it becomes invaluable because you can start to see the wins and the progress that you’re making in your day-to-day work.

Okay, so that was the first benefit. This real time guidance and structure in the midst of often a, fairly chaotic and, maybe even overwhelming time. The second benefit is the power of the shared struggle. And this is often underestimated, but there is huge value in learning alongside other new managers.

So many of the managers who’ve gone through the leadership accelerator mentioned how much they learned from their peers in the program.

For example, people will say that. They learned so much from other participants, which was a totally unexpected added bonus. This type of peer learning matters more than you might think. When you are a new manager, this whole process can feel fairly isolated. You are no longer just one of the team. But you’re also not yet experienced enough to feel confident in every decision. So you probably question yourself still every so often, if not a lot, you might wonder, Hey, am I the only one struggling with this?

Is everyone else finding this easier than I am? Am I doing this right? Is this how it’s supposed to be? I don’t know. Do people like it? Do they not? There are a million questions that could be running through your mind, but when you’re in a program with other new managers, you’ll realize something really profound, and that is that you are not alone.

That everyone is navigating very similar challenges, such as difficult team members, unclear expectations from their own managers, the guilt of setting boundaries, the overall struggle from moving, from being a peer to being a boss and so much more, and it’s validating in the best way possible. It shows you that.

A either no, you’re on the right track and the fact that you’re questioning yourself and you might be uncomfortable or find it awkward is totally normal and or that. The challenges that you have that in the, questions or maybe even the mistakes that you’re making are all part of the process.

None of that means that you’re not good in your role or that something is going wrong. It just means you are moving into leadership and there’s so much more that’s coming your way that you might not have been aware of and figuring out how to navigate all this comes with some mistakes, and it comes with these open questions and some of the challenges that you might be dealing with.

All that is normal, and this level of validation and learning from each other can boost both confidence as well as. Competence, the two main goals we’re pursuing in our leadership accelerator program. Now, one miniature specifically mentioned how these connections actually became great resources for them beyond the program in itself.

Because when you build relationships with other new leaders who understand exactly what you’re going through, you can create a support network that far extends. Beyond the training period. Some of them might actually be in the same organization as you, and you start to build a different type of relationship because you’ve gone through this learning experience together and maybe you were vulnerable in the program with some of the challenges that you’re dealing with in this safe and confidential space.

Or maybe it’s people from different industries or same industry, but different organization that you are connecting with and that type of exchange. These relationships, they can go way beyond the actual program. Actually, and in fact to support these relationships, we also run alumni calls for people who’ve gone through the program who enjoy that kind of learning and wanna come back and meet people

At similar stages in their careers. And if you are not a social butterfly and you’re like, ah, I don’t know about that I don’t know about how learning with other people, I’d rather have this learning experience by myself. I get you. And many people have felt that way in the beginning, or maybe even voiced that hesitation to me before we started the program.

And then the feedback turns out to be. Overly positive and that this peer set up and this group learning approach in small groups, by the way, these are not huge groups, is one of their favorite components of the program. And by the way, quick side note here, learning by watching others being coached is incredibly powerful ’cause you get to see how different people approach similar problems.

So you hear questions you didn’t even know you should be asking. You gain perspectives, you wouldn’t have considered on your own. That’s really why the social learning adds another component that reading a book or one-on-one training just doesn’t. So that was the second one.

Now let’s talk about the actual professional and even personal transformation through a leadership training program.

So many managers share with us that their training impacted not just their work life, but also their personal life as well.

That what they noticed is holding them back at work is. Actually also this big challenge that they’re dealing with in their personal lives and the, tools and the frameworks that we talked about, they applied to both.

And so the benefit was far, bigger than just getting better at their job, but also how they started to navigate their personal lives, so much more effectively. Another person said that they feel that they hold themselves to a different standard now, both on the personal and in the professional lives. This specifically referred to being able to say no.

How often do we say yes and over commit? And we do this both in our personal lives as well as in our professional lives. Knowing how to deal with this helps on both sides. So this is yet another benefit that most new managers actually underestimate. Leadership training doesn’t just make you a better manager.

It makes you a more effective human being in your interactions, regardless of whether that’s in your personal or professional life. And the reason is really simple. The skills that you’re developing, let’s say giving and receiving feedback, having difficult conversations, managing conflict, understanding different personality types, setting boundaries.

These are all not just workplace skills or leadership skills. These are life skills. And when you learn how to have a tough conversation with an underperforming team member, let’s say, you are also gonna learn how to have a difficult conversation with family or with friends. When you learn to delegate effectively and trust others, you’re also learning to let go of control in all areas of your life.

When you learn to manage your time and prioritize better. You asked it, your entire life becomes more balanced. One manager wrote the following, and this was beautiful. They said, I’ve been telling my peers, friends and family about how much of an impact this program has truly made on me.

And everyone shook their head and said yeah, a hundred percent. We can all see this. Truly your professional development is as much as a help for work as it is about your genuine personal growth. Now, one of the challenges that sometimes people bring up is. All that sounds great, but I’m feeling overwhelmed, right? I barely have the time to breathe. How am I supposed to be on top of everything and to do this training?

So this is really important. The time that you invest in structured training actually saves you time in sometimes in the short term, but most definitely in the long run. Remember that manager I mentioned earlier who was chuckling a whole lot of things.

They said that initially keeping up with the training program and our coaching sessions while also handling their full manager workload, the previous job, learning new tech platforms and all of that seemed overwhelming, but here’s also what they said. I’m so extremely happy I was placed in this program at this time, I don’t know that I would have been as prepared to take on my new role and feel confident that I am doing a good job if not for this program.

So yes, you can spend the next two years figuring things out through trial and error, through making mistakes, dealing with team turnover, maybe even losing sleep over whether you’re doing the right thing, questioning yourself, ruminating over particular situation, noticing how maybe you did something or said something that eroded trust in the relationship.

Or you can invest a few hours a week for a few months. To get this structured guidance, proven frameworks, and the real time coaching on the exact challenges that you’re facing. Even just fourth and back communication with your team work that you would take on if not for the training. ’cause you didn’t know how to delegate well, that you’re now delegating. All of that adds up. You’re going to save way more time going through a program like this where you have this also accountability built in the tools to help you be effective as a leader than without the training and trying to figure this out on your own.

That is way more costly way. More time intensive. So in fact, it’s if oh, I don’t know if I can afford it. If I can afford the time to join a program, I would say, I don’t think you can afford not to. You don’t have the bandwidth for empty runs for trial and error. You don’t have the capacity to it. You have too much on your plate.

Our training or any training that you wanna participate should not be fluffy.

This should be really actionable. It should be practical. It shouldn’t be academic theory that you’ll never use. This is really about the practical guidance, the mental models, the frameworks, the best practices, the ideas on how to problem solve that you can implement immediately and see rewards pile up week after week, so that not only do you see actual results and better relationships and a better reputation that you’re starting to build as a leader and you’re getting buy-in from people, but you personally start to see.

Your competence and your confidence increase. And by the way, once you develop these skills and these frameworks, you have them for life. There’s so many resources that you can continue to leverage. Learning doesn’t stop when the program ends. You can share some of this with your direct reports.

You have now resources to go back to. Over and over again, you can build on the frameworks for how to make decisions of how to have performance reviews, how to set goals, how to delegate, how to manage your time, how to deal with conflict on the team. Whatever happens you’ll be faced with, which by the way, all leaders are going to be confronted with any of those, including the under performers and the having to letting someone go or hiring a, person and sort of the challenges through that’s part of the job.

And so having these structures in place and these frameworks will make you so much more effective as you go about it. The next thing that I wanna mention is confidence. Confidence comes up over and over again, and I’ve already alluded to this a bit. So many of our managers who complete the program mentioned that they loved was being pushed outside their comfort zones.

One specific person said that the coach pushed them just enough to make them go outside of their comfort zones. But it’s still feeling safe. And they were really appreciative of that. ’cause we all know, sometimes we need someone else to say you got this, go do it. And if we didn’t have that voice, that external voice, we might not, we might doubt ourselves Too much. Confidence really doesn’t come from staying in your comfort zone. It comes from being challenged. It comes from trying new things. It, means sometimes failing. It means also to reflect on what happened. It means getting feedback and trying it all again, and ideally being supported by others in a safe environment.

And so that’s another major benefit that people underestimate is that the structured training provides a safe space to practice before the stakes are too high. So think about it this way, would you rather have your first difficult feedback conversation be with an actual employee where you words could affect their career motivation or even.

Livelihood or would you rather practice in a coaching session? Get feedback on your approach, refine your message, and then have that conversation with your team member. These are mini coaching sessions, so to speak, where you can work through scenarios.

That practice, that safe space to experiment and learn, that is invaluable. And the confidence that you build shows up everywhere, another manager mentioned this year that they feel so much more confident in their leadership now, and they actually had executive team members and their boss directly acknowledge the growth that they’ve seen in them.

That is huge. Your boss and senior leaders notice your growth. That’s really not just about feeling better, that’s actually about your career trajectory, your influence, and then ultimately your opportunities for advancement.

So, if you think, oh no, I need to be able to figure this out myself. I need to prove myself that I’m a good leader. Think again. You don’t need to handle this by yourself. In fact, you shouldn’t. It’s gonna be ineffective if you try. You’re going to figure this out yourself. It’s like saying to someone, okay, you wanna be an engineer? You know what? Just go be an engineer and learn how to code as you are trying to code. No, we would all say no, you should probably go study engineering or at least do some kind of bootcamp before you actually try to create real work. We’d all understand, no, we have to learn the skill to be effective. Now leadership is different ’cause we, don’t have a dedicated time, most of us to just.

Learn how to be your leader. It always is going to overlap with the actual work, but trying to do this all on your own is just a more ineffective path. The reality is the most successful leaders are the ones who invest in their development early and consistently.

Now as we wrap up, I wanna share one more thing that really struck me in reflecting on the participants that have joined the program in 2025, there is a ripple effect of good leadership training.

When you become a better manager, it doesn’t just affect you, it affects every person on your team. It affects their engagement, their development, their career satisfaction, their performance, and, so with all that you are changing your team’s results and how well your team does is going to determine how well you do you are improving the effectiveness and the performance and the productivity of your team. You are also role modeling a growth mindset, a learning approach. The importance in invest in your own professional development. That kind of message ripples through your team or even beyond that.

In essence, when you grow as a leader, you team grows too. When you learn to give better feedback, your team members develop faster. When you learn to delegate more effectively, not just does it free up your own time, but you’re also giving your team members opportunities to stretch and develop new skills.

When you learn how to have difficult conversations instead of avoiding them, you’re creating a healthier team culture. When you learn to manage up more effectively, you’re better able to advocate for your team’s needs and remove obstacle. This is probably the most underestimated benefit of all.

Your development as a leader directly impacts the development of everyone around you. So let’s bring all of this together. What are the real benefits of new manager training that you might be underestimating? First, the structure training provides a framework and real time guidance

when everything else feels chaotic, you’re not just learning theory, you’re actually dealing with challenges that you’re facing during that week or during that time. Second, you’re learning alongside other new manager, and that breaks the isolation. It gives you more perspectives. That you would never get on your own. You’re not alone in the struggle, and there’s immense value in shared learning. Third the, process is not just about your development as a better and becoming a better manager, but it also makes you a more effective person. The impact extends far beyond your job title. Okay, next. Yes, you do invest upfront, but it saves you countless hours of trial and error later.

Plus, you are building skills and frameworks that you can use for the rest of your career. Also, the structured training gives you a safe space to practice, experiment, get feedback on, and build genuine competence. You don’t just have to fake it right along the way, but you’re developing the confidence and competence all along.

And finally, your growth as a leader creates a ripple effect that impacts your team, your organization, and your career trajectory. So transitioning into management is hard.

Most people don’t get the warning of what will hit them and what they will be faced with. And so we find ourselves in the deep end of the pool trying. Not to sing but to swim.

But the important part here is you don’t have to figure this out all along, and you shouldn’t, you don’t have to learn this the hard way.

Programs like the Leadership Accelerator exist specifically to help new managers like you develop the competence and the confidence to lead well from the start. Not in some theoretical academic way, but in practical. Here is what you do on Monday morning kind of way, really specific and personalized though to you.

This is not cookie cutter. This is with small group with one-on-one components built in as well. If you are a new manager or about to become one, ask yourself this. Am I willing to invest in my development now or am I going to wait until I’m struggling?

Because the managers that seem to be naturally gifted. They’re just the ones who are most intentional about their growth. They’re the ones who are making the investment in themselves, and they’re most committed to their career, and they will do whatever it takes in order to succeed, in order to be set up for success, especially in an environment where the odds are actually stacked against you.

So I hope you find this helpful and insightful for you to also reflect on whether that is for you to decide to participate in a leadership training such as the leadership accelerator or another option that you might have, or if there’s just stuff that you need to pay attention to as you go about this transition in order to be successful.

Now, if you have other colleagues or someone else you know who’s the first time manager and would benefit from hearing this, please pass this episode along. It would mean a lot to us, and it’s one way that we can reach more people who are looking to grow as leaders, who take that responsibility serious and wanna do a good job.

And remember, being promoted does not mean being prepared, but being prepared is absolutely within your reach. If you wanna learn more about the leadership accelerator, check out the show notes below. With the link, we can schedule a call, a strategy call to talk about your specific situation in the program, and most importantly.

Make sure that this program would actually be the right fit for you and what you can expect to gain from it. Check that out and if that resonates, I’d look forward to speaking with you soon.

Thanks so much and I’ll see you next week with another episode of The Manager Track podcast.

If you enjoy this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader. People love to work with. This includes a free master class on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it out@ourcova.org forward slash masterclass. 

The second resource is my best-selling book, the confident and competent new manager, how to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role. Check it out at our cova.org/books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there. 

You can find all those links

There we go.

So we’ll include that in the show notes too.

Jason, thank you so much. Thanks, Ramona. It’s great being here.
If you enjoy this episode, then check out two other awesome resources to help you become a leader. People love to work with. This includes a free master class on how to successfully lead as a new manager. Check it archova.org/books/masterclass.
The second resource is my best-selling book, the confident and competent new manager, how to quickly rise to success in your first leadership role. Check it out at archova.org/books or head on over to Amazon and grab your copy there.

You can find [00:47:00] all those links. In the show notes down below.