Management 101: First Time Manager

My first few weeks as a first time manager, managing 5 soldiers and civilian contractors, to be honest, have been very tough. I didn't know what I was doing. As time went by, I think I got used to the position of OIC*. And surprisingly, it turned out to be more fun that I expected. I do not mean fun as having entertainment fun...but fun as "there are many issues with successfully managing your team and coming up with ideas and carrying out those ideas to solve inter-personnel issues can be very challenging and exciting at the same time" fun. There are 5 people under my leadership and I noticed that they all have unique personalities that require different levels of attention, guidance, and direction. They are:

Ron - New member to join our team. Good mannered, outgoing guy who is very pleasant to work with. I am glad that Ron joined our team. Ron gets jobs done even if they require staying late until 1am. He learns fast and learns from his mistakes. His optimisim and positive attitude sometimes surprise me.

Matt - Matt is the most senior guy in our team. He is the oldest and has the most experience out of us all. However, Matt has some room for improvement with his analytical skills. Matt will get the job done, but at the same time, needs a close oversight and guidance.

Bert - Now, Bert is a character. I have been having issues with Bert since the beginning. Simply put, Bert is lazy and will barely get the job done to get by. I will talk about Bert more in the next posts...

Frank - Frank has been in the army over 20 years. It was very hard to pull Frank out of his comfort zone to be part of the team. In my first few weeks, my focus was to have Frank up to speed, on par with rest of the team. It required team's time and effort in making that happen. I will talk more about this in my next post.

Ethan - Very bright, high-speed guy who doesn't require much guidance or direction. But from time to time, Ethan seems to be in his own world....like daydreaming or something.

I will be managing these guys for next 9 months. This may be a turning point for me to grow as a manager, and leader. I realized that, as a manager, it is easy for me to be in MY comfort zone where I am tasking everyone in the team while I'm not doing anything. Few days ago, I've read an article in the New York Times where it talks about becoming a successful CEO. The author of the article argues that to be an effective CEO, all you need to do is following:

• Set direction and milestones (resisting the tempting distraction of juicy diversification). The ability to clearly say, "No, we are not doing that," is very important.
• Allocate resources (both financial and human, starting with your time).
• Hire and fire the top team (we have devoted a separate chapter to hiring an A-Team because this is much harder to say than do).

(* OIC stands for Officer In Charge and is equivalent to a small team manager in corporate environment.)