This week’s blog concludes a 3-weekseries for New Managers.

It is designed to helpentrepreneurs or freshly promoted new managers who need to start building andmanaging a team from scratch. In less than 10 mins, this read will save youfrom making some rookie mistakes and show you alternative ways.

As a reminder in the past couple ofweeks we covered the following topics:

Week 1. You already have some leadership experience, and by moving to a new role in a different department or company, you start leading an existing team. Click here for more.

Week 2. You are a Star A-player in your team and get promoted to a leadership position within it. Click here for more.

Let's get started then! Here are the 3 best ways to avoid a rookie manager's mistakes.

1. Take Time to Focus on the Big Picture

As you start growing your business,hire people and become a manager, your role is no longer only tactical. Yes,you will still need to do some fire fighting here and there, but you also needto take time and focus on the big picture. Which translates into beingstrategic about your business.

Depending on your role and size ofthe organization, in the beginning, the strategy portion might be 10% of yourtime. However, as the business grows, or you climb the corporate ladder, thisratio will start going up significantly. Therefore, starting to build your strategicmuscle early will help you progress into it with ease.

Being strategic means knowing whatis truly important, not just urgent. It means ensuring that you take time towork on the important and not letting the urgent overshadow it. Yes, I knowthat you are getting a “better” sense of accomplishment from responding to 100e-mails a day or helping employees with their tasks. But as necessary as itmight be for you sometimes to jump and fight in the trenches, it cannot consume100% of your time.

Don’t focus just on activities, setgoals and focus on accomplishing them. Being strategic ensures that yourbusiness grows and stays competitive as opposed to just spinning like a hamsterwheel.

2. Delegate Smartly

So far you have been either doingit all in your business or doing specific tasks as an individual contributor.It's all natural then that at the beginning of your management journey you wantto do it all alone.

Beware though as it’s an old habitfrom the past you need to get rid of as fast as you can. Not only because youwon't have time to be strategic, but also you will become one of those annoyingmicro-managers that no one wants to work for. You need to show confidence andtrust your people to do things right.

So how to delegate smartly? Here are some ideas:

1. Treat delegation as a way to develop andgrow your team members. It’s not a dump and run tactic. Delegation takes timein the beginning. It teaches you strategy, requires planning and patience.

2. Match the delegation’s tasks with the strengthsof the employees to whom you will assign them.

3. Clearly define the goals – an outcome ofthe functions you are passing on.

4. If required, train your employees of anyaspects of the task performance. Show them anything that is important to you,but don’t constrain them to one way of reaching the goal. Just give them ideas.Ensure they know they can put their own spin to it. Remember, many roads leadto Rome. Let your employees pick one of them; you might enable innovation thisway :)

5. Trust your employees not only withresponsibility but also the authority to make some decisions along the way.Clearly define for them, which decisions they can make, on which they need toconsult with you, and which you need to make.

6. Don’t forget about feedback – praise your employees for a job well done and if there is anything they need to improve on, tell them about it candidly and constructively.

3. Focus on Your People

"Nothing we do is moreimportant than hiring and developing people. You bet on people, not onstrategies.”- Lawrence Bossidy

Many great and successful leaderstalk about it all the time, but somehow it's not a common practice yet. At theend of the day, your people are your success. As a Boss, your main job ishiring great talent and developing them by coaching and feedback.

It’s not easy to do, especially inthe beginning. It is why people management skill development is so important.Don’t just learn on the job. Big mistakes can cost you not only your job orloss of business but also affect your employees, real people with families whomthey support.

Of course that no one is perfect,everyone makes mistakes me included, and you will make them too. It is why youneed not to be afraid to acknowledge you do not know it all and get support. Ifyou are a new manager in a company, reach out to your boss, HR partner or moresenior colleagues for advice. Maybe you can find a mentor. If you are asolopreneur, connect with those who have large teams and are killing it.

Also, invest in yourself - for you and your team.

Throughout my career, I have developed my skills through many different channels: on the job, in-person training, online courses, formal education, as well as mentors and senior colleagues. Although I made many mistakes along the way, I know that all that investment paid off. It prevented me from causing significant damages to the teams I managed and the businesses I run and also speed up my growth as a leader.

Since building a team, starts with recruitment, I prepared a free guide with 6 hiring strategies to help you start on the learning journey. It’s a quick read, a token of appreciation for those who want to learn for them and their people. Click here to receive my e-guide: ABC of Hiring.

To sum up, business is oftencompared to team sports: there are goals to hit, and people are in it to win.As per Michael Jordan: “Talent wins games, but teamwork and intelligence winchampionships.”

As a Boss are your team’s main coach. It’s on you to hire talent, develop and coach the talent and above all ensure that all the individual talents become a high-performing Team. I compare a great team to a puzzle: every piece is different, but with a great leader when put together, they create a beautiful & cohesive picture.