Becoming a Manager

II

Developing Interpersonal Judgment

Building effective relationships with their subordinates was unequivocally the most difficult task the new managers faced.¹ They were surprised to discover just how daunting it could be and how vulnerable they were:

I thought if you had the product skills and answers, that was all you would need. You need interpersonal skills and attitude projection to be successful.

The personnel side. No, let’s not call it personnel, it is the art of managing people … that is probably the hardest part of the job to learn to do well. After all, you’re promoted to the job because you’ve been successful in marketing.

In their nonmanagerial jobs, the managers surely had learned valuable lessons about managing work relationships; ...