We just promoted a fabulous team leader to assistant manager. As a team leader, he was collaborative, full of new ideas and everyone loved him. But now, it’s like he’s had a personality change. He’s nitpicky, only gives negative feedback and has become super demanding. How do I coach him back to being the person he was before?
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I think a contributing factor to this new manager’s change in leadership style could also be the stress resulting from the increased responsibility. The offer to make additional resources available to the new manager, then, is an excellent idea.
I thought the same; a lot of people don’t realize what’s involved in actually being a manager, and it overwhelms them.
Even different levels of management can do this. At one job, the company was bought out and the owners left after the transition. A mid-level person got promoted and became the general manager in their place. He was effective at the middle level, but after the promotion, not so much. Communication dropped off, he spent a lot of time in his office with the door closed, and he seemed paralyzed by any kind of decision making.
When the acquiring company sent a new executive to streamline things, they let him go. In my opinion, they should have put him back in his old position—he had a ton of industry knowledge. The GM position just wasn’t a good fit for him.
Agree with above.
It is so important to train him now on what skills he needs for this new job.
Ask him what he feels his roll is now as compared to before. Ask him if he is comfortable giving direction to staff. Maybe he is nervous on giving direction, thinking they not take him seriously and maybe that is why he over does it.
Or maybe he is power hungry now in which you need to shoot that down now.
Just please make sure you tackle all of this now. I have seen way to many situations where someone gets promoted and boom… not a good thing.
There are still certain skill that are needed for management that he just may not have.
Your point about being comfortable giving direction to staff is a good one, especially when a new manager is — suddenly — supervising those who were previously same-level coworkers. Adjustments must occur on both sides, since staff will also have to become comfortable with accepting direction from a former peer. Such adjustments take time and don’t always proceed smoothly.