5 practical tips for supporting your first-time managers

The days when promotion to a management role was still seen as a natural reward, the logical next step after solid expertise, are over. Today, many executives look at this threshold and take a step back.

The APEC figures from April 2026 are damning: only 34% of non-manager executives still want to take on managerial responsibilities. That is a drop of 8 points in three years. Among under-35s, the decline reaches 16 points.

This is not a question of generation or a loss of the appetite for hard work. It is the consequence of a role that has become radically more complex, without companies really turning their attention to preparation. Leading hybrid teams, embodying authority with kindness, steering the integration of AI, managing increasingly diverse individual expectations… 63% of managers say they feel poorly prepared to hold this position (Gartner, 2025).

The result is predictable: a shaky start in the role, overload, loss of bearings, disengaged teams. Sometimes, the quiet resignation of the manager themselves.

This situation is not inevitable. Above all, it reveals a structural shortfall in support. Here are 5 concrete actions to put it right.

1. Define the role before the start in the job

Most first-time managers discover their new remit by living it. It is a mistake the company can avoid.

Even before the first day in the new role, three questions deserve a clear answer:

• What is the priority mission? To produce, to organise, to grow the team — and in what order over the next six months?
• On which subjects does the manager genuinely have decision-making power? Budget, recruitment, work organisation: whatever is left unsaid will be tested by trial and error.
• Against which criteria will they be assessed in a year's time? Without this, they will be steering blind.

Reassuring and clarifying the stance towards the team

This transition raises legitimate apprehensions, particularly when the new manager takes charge of a team they were part of the day before. How do you go from colleague to line manager? How do you take on a position of authority without losing the trust you have built?

Several points deserve to be addressed explicitly with the new manager:

• What changes: they become the guardian of the framework, responsible for collective performance, and called upon to arbitrate. They can no longer be "just a member of the team".
• What does not change: the quality of the relationship, the listening, the recognition of a job well done. Becoming a manager does not mean becoming distant or unapproachable.
• The right to feel their way: no one becomes a good manager overnight. Telling the team "I'm going to try things, some will work better than others" is a mark of clear-sightedness, not weakness.

The same clarification work must be done with the team. A few one-to-ones are enough to lay the foundations: what works well today? What are the irritants? How does each person prefer to work? These conversations allow the new manager to show that they listen before deciding, and that they do not change personality just because they have changed role.

2. Put rituals in place from the outset

42% of employees feel their manager is not clear about the team's priorities (OpinionWay / Empreinte Humaine, 2023). This figure says something important: many managers spend their days in reactive mode, responding to emergencies, without ever taking a step back.

Rituals are the structural answer to this problem: they are set up in the very first weeks, before bad habits take hold.

Three rituals are enough to begin with:

=> The weekly team check-in: 30 to 45 minutes with a stable framework. Where does the team stand? What obstacles are cropping up? What does each person need this week? This meeting avoids constant micro-corrections and gives a shared direction.

=> Regular one-to-ones: every two weeks, 30 minutes per person. This time makes it possible to anticipate difficulties before they become crises, to realign priorities, and to support each team member in their projects. 

=> The monthly appointment with yourself: a moment to ask "what have I done this month as a manager, and not as an expert?" It is the hardest ritual to keep, and probably the most useful. It forces you to step out of doing and reflect on the role.

3. Learn to give and receive feedback

You can become an excellent engineer, salesperson or project manager without ever having formulated structured feedback. The day you become a manager, however, this skill becomes central. And in the vast majority of cases, it remains little or not at all developed.

On the positive side, it is what anchors good behaviours and gives the team its bearings. On the corrective side, it is what makes it possible to refocus a situation before it deteriorates, without letting problems settle in through avoidance.

But feedback also works the other way round. A manager who knows how to seek it out from their team, their line manager and their peers moves forward faster and avoids blind spots. This learning stance is what sets apart the managers who progress from those who stagnate.

Read also: Let's cultivate the art of feedback!

4. Encourage peer-to-peer learning

When someone steps up in responsibility, they can no longer really talk about their doubts with their team (who now see them differently), or with their management (for fear of appearing fragile). The result: they muddle through alone, wear themselves out, and the first mistakes turn into habits.

Mentoring is a direct answer to this problem. The principle: pair each new manager with a colleague who went through the same transition a year or two earlier. A peer available to answer concrete questions, with no hierarchical stakes and no judgement.

How do you deliver difficult feedback to someone more experienced than you? How do you handle tension between two team members? How do you arbitrate between two contradictory priorities? These are precisely the questions, specific and contextual, that a mentor can address.

Read also: Peer-to-peer learning, when the company reveals its hidden talents

5. Train over time, not in a single day

A one-day management course produces limited results. Between the moment the content is presented and the moment the manager needs it, weeks can go by. By that point, some of it is forgotten, and day-to-day life has taken over again.

Baptiste Benezet, co-founder of Teambakery and a specialist in supporting first-time managers, sums up the reality well: in the month following a conventional course, a manager will have used only 5 to 10% of what they learned.

Training spread over several weeks, by contrast, makes it possible to anchor the reflexes as and when they become useful. The three-phase structure that Teambakery offers over 90 days is a good example:

• Phase 1 — Setting the framework: time management, team rituals, first structured feedback.
• Phase 2 — Building substance: delegation, goal-setting, difficult conversations, learning to say no.
• Phase 3 — Giving meaning: conviction, a test-and-learn culture, team health indicators.

Each phase builds on the previous one; it is this gradual progression that makes the difference.

‍What it really changes

Becoming a manager is not a matter of moving up a rung on the hierarchical ladder. It is changing profession. The expert masters the technique, the execution, the content. The manager learns communication, feedback, delegation, stance. These two professions call on largely different skills; and the transition from one to the other takes time, support, and a company culture that genuinely values it.

The five levers presented here are not reserved for large organisations. They can be put into action right now, whatever the size of the company.

‍