From manager to leader: a practical guide for new leaders

Stepping into a leadership role is usually a promotion; in practice, it’s a shift in responsibility, identity and focus and one that many people are expected to make with very little support.

Most first-time managers are promoted because they’re technically good at their job - capable, dependable and trusted. Then, almost overnight, the job changes. Success is no longer about what you deliver personally, but by how well other people perform, grow and stay engaged. And yet new leaders are expected to make this shift without any guidance or support.

The hidden cost of accidental management

CMI research shows a consistent pattern: managers who haven’t had training are less confident in challenging poor behaviour, less comfortable leading through change, and more likely to hold onto work themselves. The result on others is lower motivation and engagement, low levels of trust and accountability and ultimately lower levels of retention.

A Chartered Management Institute report (2023) described “accidental managers” - people who are promoted without training or guidance on how to lead people well. Their research shows that while around a quarter of the UK workforce now holds a management role, only 27% of employees rate their manager as highly effective. Where managers are seen as ineffective, half of employees say they plan to leave within the year.

This article is a practical guide for new leaders, whether you’re stepping into leadership yourself or supporting others to do so.

Pause and reflect:

• What did you find hardest when you first became responsible for other people?

1. Letting go of doing and learning to trust others

One of the biggest shifts new leaders face is letting go of the work that made them successful in the first place.

If your reputation has been built on being reliable, knowledgeable and hands-on, trusting others to do the work can be hard. Delegation isn’t just a practical skill. It’s an emotional one - it’s just about handing over tasks; it’s about trusting others to do the work even when you worry there may be mistakes or that things may take longer.

Leaders I coach often say:

• “It’s just quicker if I just do it myself.”

• “I don’t want to overload the team.”

• “I feel responsible if it goes wrong.”

Underneath that is a real fear of losing control, status or credibility. But holding on too tightly creates bottlenecks and quietly limits your team’s confidence and performance as well as your own. New leaders often become busy, stretched and indispensable but also exhausted and frustrated.

Reflect:

• Where are you stepping in because it feels safer or quicker to do it yourself?

• What might someone else learn if you didn’t?

2. Moving from fixing problems to enabling people

Many new managers believe their value lies in having answers and fixing things for other people. Over time, this creates dependency and bottlenecks rather than confidence and ownership.

When someone brings you a problem, offering a solution can feel supportive and efficient. But over time, people come to depend on you rather than thinking for themselves, and this puts more pressure on managers.

A key leadership shift is moving from fixing to enabling, which doesn’t mean withdrawing support or becoming hands-off. It means creating space for people to think things through, test ideas and take responsibility – even when it’s uncomfortable to watch.

This is where a coaching approach to leadership becomes powerful. Coaching is about changing the balance of responsibility so people grow in confidence and capability. We’ll explore the manager-as-coach approach in more depth later in this series.

Reflect:

• When someone brings you a problem, do you jump to solutions or create space for thinking?

• What would change if your role were to enable thinking rather than provide answers?

3. Managing former peers and holding boundaries

Managing people who were your peers is one of the most emotionally complex leadership challenges of becoming a new manager or leader. The new leaders I work with often feel torn between maintaining relationships and setting expectations; they feel guilty about giving feedback and pulled to still be ‘one of the team’. This can lead to softened messages, avoided conversations or inconsistent expectations.

What teams need from leaders isn’t closeness alone, but clarity and fairness - boundaries create safety and consistency, which builds credibility and trust. Being a leader doesn’t mean losing warmth or humanity; it means being clear about standards and responsibilities, even when that feels awkward.

Reflect:

• When are you avoiding giving feedback or setting standards to protect relationships?

• What boundaries can you set to help you set standards and expectations?

4. Managing up and finding your voice

Leadership isn’t only about managing downwards; it’s also about managing sideways and upwards, perhaps working alongside people who were more senior to you. You may still be finding your feet while also being asked to represent your team’s reality to senior leaders.

Leaders I work with often describe: holding back in senior meetings, worrying about not appearing strategic or knowledgeable, hesitating to challenge decisions, or feeling caught between senior managers and the reality of team capacity. As a result, we can delay raising issues, soften messages or say we agree to decisions when we don’t.

Finding your voice isn’t about being louder or more forceful. Assertive leadership is calm and clear, being able to state your view, explaining reasoning, and staying open-minded when there’s disagreement.

This is a critical skill for leaders operating in complex systems, and one that often needs practice and support.

Reflect:

• Where do you hesitate to speak up because of hierarchy or status?

• What conversations are you holding back from because you’re unsure how they’ll land?

• What would it sound like to state your view clearly and calmly?

5. Thinking strategically: stepping back from the day-to-day

As responsibility increases, leaders often find themselves busier than ever and thinking less.

Many managers are caught in delivery mode, responding to immediate demands with little space to step back and see patterns, risks or longer-term priorities. Yet leadership requires perspective as well as pace.

Creating space to think is not a luxury. It’s part of the role and something organisations need to actively protect if they want leaders to operate strategically rather than reactively. This isn’t about having all the answers; it’s about asking better questions and making more intentional choices.

Reflect:

• How much time do you spend reacting versus thinking?

• What might you notice if you stepped back more often?

Why leadership development matters

Stepping up from team member to manager or leader isn’t easy, and most people aren’t properly supported to make that shift.

CMI research shows that managers who receive training and development feel more confident, more adaptable and better equipped to lead others. In practice, that doesn’t mean an off-the-shelf management training programme; it comes from having space to think, reflect, practise difficult conversations, and make sense of the challenges you’re facing day to day.

That’s where leadership coaching and development can make a real difference. Through one-to-one coaching and leadership development programmes, we work with new and experienced leaders to:

• build confidence and their leadership style

• move from doing and fixing to leading and enabling others

• improve communication, use a coaching approach to management, give feedback and manage difficult conversations.

• step back, think more strategically

• set boundaries, standards and expectations.

Find out more about leadership development and coaching here >

Or contact us hello@growth-space.co.uk

In the next article in this series, we’ll look more closely at the manager-as-coach approach — and how leaders can build confidence and ownership in others, rather than carrying everything themselves.