How to Get ICs Ready to Manage

What do you do if someone in your team wants to be a manager but there isn’t an opportunity at the moment? How do you help them feel a sense of upward progression and momentum in their career?

The truth is, moving up the ladder is not the only way to feel like you’re making progress. When your people gain new skills and experiences, take on leadership opportunities, or make a bigger impact, they feel their careers are moving forwards.

With Elevate’s Manager Readiness Framework, you can still have high quality career conversations that create that sense of momentum despite the absence of upward mobility.

It’s a simple, straightforward model designed to guide you in facilitating the growth of your team members. This framework provides concrete steps to mentor and coach your ICs, focusing on three key areas: Self Management, Leadership, and Focus on Others.

If you’re a People Leader, this article is a great resource to support your managers post performance reviews.

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Get My ICs Ready To Manage

Elevate’s Manager Readiness Framework

Self Management

Time Management and Prioritization

Managing time effectively and prioritizing tasks are fundamental to good management. Help your ICs review their daily routine and identify areas where they may be wasting time or not focusing on high-priority tasks.

Here are some questions to help them get clear about how well they manage their time:

What tasks do you often procrastinate on, and why might that be? Is it because they are not aligned with your priorities, or is there another reason?
At what times during the day do you feel most productive? How can you adjust my schedule to allocate more high-priority tasks to these periods?
Are there any tasks or activities that take up significant time in your day but don't contribute to your development goals? Can they be minimized or eliminated?
How do you handle unexpected disruptions in your daily routine?
How often do you find yourself rushing to meet deadlines?

Advise them to consider adopting proven time management strategies like Eisenhower's Urgent/Important principle or the Pomodoro Technique.

Self-Awareness and Coachability

Acknowledging your strengths and areas for development is key to growth.

Encourage your team members to regularly ask for feedback from peers and superiors and see it as an opportunity to improve your skills and grow professionally. Make sure you’re giving your timely feedback as well.

Not sure how self-aware or coachable your ICs are? Coach them using the following questions:

How accurately can you describe your strengths and weaknesses without bias?
How do your actions and behaviors affect other people? Can you provide specific examples?
How do you respond when you receive feedback not aligned with your self-perception?
When you receive advice or guidance, do you take the initiative to make changes, or do you look for excuses to stick to your existing habits?

Level Headedness

A good manager remains composed under challenging situations. To do this effectively, help them identify what causes them to become agitated and develop strategies to manage their reactions.

Ask them these questions to reflect on what tends to trigger them:

When was the last time you felt triggered? What happened?
Are there any recurring patterns or themes in these triggers? Do they relate to specific people, tasks, or circumstances?
Do you have any biases or preconceptions that could contribute to your triggers?

Some of the techniques we found effective for staying calm are:

Pause and breathe: When triggered, take a moment to pause, breathe deeply, and allow yourself to regain composure before responding.
Seek feedback: Establish an open and honest feedback loop with your teammates.
Journaling: Consider keeping a journal to track your triggers and reactions, allowing you to identify patterns and potential solutions.

Humility & Vulnerability

Humility and vulnerability can go a long way. If you don’t see your team members demonstrating this, walk them through those times when they missed an opportunity and roleplay what they could have said instead.

This develops an environment where people feel comfortable discussing their vulnerabilities and difficulties, and fosters psychological safety

Here are some examples to display humility and vulnerability:

"I made an error in the budget calculations for the department's expenses. I recognize the impact this has on our financial planning. Moving forward, I will double-check my calculations and ensure accuracy in our budgeting process."
Or
"I've been working on this project for quite some time now, and I still can't seem to get it right. I feel like I might be missing something. Can we review it together?"

Leadership

Proactivity

Proactive ICs are often those who make successful managers. Look for opportunities where they can step up and take the initiative.

Some of the opportunities they can take are:

Volunteer for additional responsibilities that align with your skills and interests, showcasing their willingness to go above and beyond.
Take the lead in problem-solving by proactively finding solutions and presenting their ideas to you.
Seek out independent learning and development opportunities to improve their skills and knowledge.
Offer constructive feedback without waiting to be asked.
Identify inefficiencies or bottlenecks in workflows and take the lead in proposing and implementing improvements.
Take the initiative to mentor and assist others who can benefit from their expertise and experience.
Propose and lead team-building initiatives.
Stay updated on industry trends and innovations, share with their team, and propose ways to apply advancements.

What opportunities can they take this week to demonstrate proactive leadership?

Conflict Resolution

Your ICs need to be able to successfully resolve conflicts they have with other people and lean into tough conversations when necessary. You can help them get more comfortable and confident by coaching them on how to have these types of conversations.

Use Elevate's Conflict Mediation Model as a guide to resolving conflicts more confidently.

Thoughtful Communication

Communication style can significantly impact the team. When the situation calls for it, can your ICs communicate diplomatically, empathetically, transparently, and authentically?

It is one of the most challenging skills to master, but it’s worth the effort. It's the foundation of strong relationships, trust, morale, and leadership.

How thoughtful are your ICs when communicating? Ask yourself if you notice these things:

Does the person demonstrate an understanding of their colleagues' perspectives and feelings during communication? Can they express empathy effectively?
Are they able to present their opinions, disagreements, or constructive feedback in a diplomatic way, respecting the feelings and ideas of others?
How often do their communications lead to arguments or misunderstandings?
Do they openly share their thoughts and ideas, even when they might be unpopular or challenging?
Are they comfortable expressing their true feelings, thoughts, and beliefs in a professional and respectful manner?

If you’ve noticed they’re not communicating in a thoughtful way, make sure you give them actionable feedback in a timely manner.

Strategic Thinking

In order to think strategically, managers need to get their heads out of their day to day, see the big picture, and think beyond their immediate tasks. Encourage them to immerse themselves in the company's strategy and goals, and educate themselves about industry trends. Consider how the team's work aligns with the bigger picture and explore ways to drive that alignment.

Here are 4 questions to ask them and corresponding tips to act more strategically:

To what extent do you understand your company's strategies and goals?

Tip: Ask questions to the right people to gain a comprehensive view of your company's objectives and your team's role in achieving them.

How familiar are you with my company's industry and market?

Tip: Stay updated about market trends, competitor news, and changing customer behaviors.

How much time do you spend on strategic thinking?

Tip: Carve out time each week to think big picture and analyze what you've learned.

Do you set priorities for what you have learned?

Tip: Set strategic priorities, present your findings to your manager, and craft a corresponding development plan together

Focus on Others

Elevating Others

“Before you are a leader, success is all about growing yourself. When you become a leader, success is all about growing others.”

— Jack Welch, ex-Chairman and CEO of General Electric, author of Winning.

After becoming a manager, your direct report’s role is to help their team members to succeed. How productive the team are, how safe they feel, and how happy they are at work depends on how they lead the team.

This is a huge topic to cover, and elevating others has a few key aspects:

Mentoring and coaching involve guiding, supporting, and giving feedback. For example, during their 1-1s, discuss progress, give feedback, and share relevant resources.
Recognizing achievements means acknowledging and giving credit where it's due. It could be as simple as praising the behaviors they want to see more of.
Creating growth opportunities is a chance to understand their team's career goals and assign tasks aligned with their team’s goals.
Giving autonomy shows that they trust their team members to make decisions and take ownership. Their role is to provide support and resources when their team needs it.
Building diversity and inclusivity means recognizing unique strengths and creating opportunities for collaboration and learning across diverse backgrounds and experiences.
Leading by example inspires and motivates their team members to follow not only what they say, but what they do.

Choose one aspect to start their journey of elevating others. Encourage them to decide what they will do this week and write it down. Popping it on their to-do list or calendar is a simple way to remind themselves to do it.

Like this kind of content? We have dozens of micro classes focusing on the most critical management topics. They’re based on science and creates true behavioral changes without you having to create any content.

See How We Train Managers You Would Want to Work For

Creating Psychological Safety

Good managers help others feel comfortable enough to ask questions, disagree, share opinions, and admit mistakes freely in group situations without fear of punishment.

Some key tips for creating psychological safety are:

Be vulnerable. Openly share and discuss your mistakes and what you learned from them. Admit that you don't have all the answers and are willing to look for them.
Model curiosity. Actively seek input from their team members like, "How might we improve this process?" Ask follow-up questions and seek clarification during a team presentation.
Be inclusive by bringing quieter voices into the conversation. Specifically, invite the quieter ones, saying, "We haven't heard from you yet, Gitta. What are your thoughts?"
Demonstrate engagement and presence. Maintain eye contact with the speaker, nod in agreement, and take notes to show active listening. Refrain from checking your phone and actively participate in discussions. Ask questions for clarification.

Which area do you notice that your team member needs to pay more attention?

Building Trust with Peers

Trust is key to successful management. As your IC transition to manager, they will need to maintain and deepen relationships with their colleagues.

The key to building trust is making deposits to their peer's emotional bank account. We borrowed this concept of an emotional bank account from Stephen Covey.

Our relationships with people are like emotional bank accounts. To have a healthy relationship, we need to regularly make "deposits" into their accounts. As a soon-to-be manager, it's important to think of ways to make these deposits so that people feel happy and connected at work.

“If I make deposits into an Emotional Bank Account with you through courtesy, kindness, honesty, and keeping my commitments to you, I build up a reserve. Your trust in me becomes higher, and I can call upon that trust many times if I need to. When the trust account is high, communication is easy, instant, and effective.”

— Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.

Here are some ideas your ICs can implement to make deposits into their peers' emotional bank accounts:

Praising someone for good work
Saying something kind and sincere
Being empathetic and a good listener when someone is upset
Showing curiosity and interest in another person's interests
Following through on what you've promised
Showcasing their work to senior leadership
Doing something to support their career development

What's one thing you can do this week to make a deposit in a co-worker's emotional bank account?

Wrapping It Up

While upward mobility may not always be available, there are still other ways to help team members feel a sense of progress and momentum in their careers.

Elevate's Manager Readiness Framework provides a valuable tool to facilitate growth and development for individuals aspiring to become managers. By focusing on areas such as self-management, leadership, and a focus on others, ICs can enhance their skills and experiences, take on leadership opportunities, and make a meaningful impact.

[Free Training] Get Your ICs Ready to Manage In The Shortest Time

If you're unsure where to start to prepare your ICs for a management role, we have a free resource to help. We've curated a list of the most critical skills perfect for individual contributors who want to transition to management.

The skills your ICs will learn are:

4 tips for managing up
How to manage your energy
How to manage your time
How to have an executive presence on Zoom
How to get others to give you feedback
How to receive feedback
How to have tough conversations

The good news is that you can access this collection of videos for free when you claim your free access to Elevate Academy.

Each class is only 5 to 10 minutes long, packed with simple strategies and action tips to get you started immediately. Download the class summaries to refresh what you've learned at a glance.

Get Your Free Access and Start Preparing Your ICs The Fastest Way Possible

What we’ll provide during and after a call

Elevate’s Manager Readiness Framework