Making the Most of Your First Three Months as a New Manager

Don’t waste this short window of time when you can play the newbie card to your advantage

Julie Zhuo
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Credit: Milkos/iStock/Getty Images Plus

So you’ve been promoted or hired as the newly instated manager of a team. What now?

No matter how you’ve arrived at your new role, congratulations are in order, because this much is true: Somebody — more likely many people — believed in you and your potential to lead a team.

Depending on what got you to this point, different things may be easy or hard for you in your first three months. Your path here probably took one of these four routes:

The Apprentice

Your manager’s team is growing, so you’ve been asked to manage part of it going forward. I went down this path to become a manager at Facebook when our design team’s leader realized that we needed more support after our team doubled. Suddenly, my peers were now my direct reports.

What to take advantage of

This is usually the easiest way to transition into being a manager. Because your manager has been looking over the team and knows everyone involved, you’ll typically have more guidance than in the other transition scenarios. Questions to discuss with your manager…

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Julie Zhuo
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Building Sundial (sundial.so). Former Product Design VP @ FB. Author of The Making of a Manager. Find me @joulee. I love people, nuance, and systems.