Lead the People #125: Why Most New Managers Struggle (and how to set them up for success) with Ashley Herd
Ashley Herd is the founder of Manager Method, a business focused on empowering managers with practical tools to lead effectively. With a background as a General Counsel and Head of HR, Ashley has a unique perspective on balancing legal considerations with people management. She's passionate about making leadership development accessible and impactful, helping managers create positive ripple effects within their teams.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Know Why. Most managers fail because they lack basic people skills training, not because they're bad people. Organizations too often promote top performers without teaching them how to manage different personalities.
- Send Help. HR teams want to provide manager training but they lack capacity, not capability. They're stretched thin with compliance work and need scalable, ready-to-use training resources.
- Join Forces. The best management training comes from internal leaders partnered with external speakers. Combining expert content with internal context creates the most impactful learning experience.
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From the Source
"The problem that I've seen is that people don't get training on the skillset that it is to manage all of these different personalities. You may actively avoid [poor performers] or you just don't work with them as much because you are put on high potential projects."
"What I sometimes say to people is management, why it's so different is if you're trying to figure out what it's like to be a manager is go look at or join your local community Facebook group, and you may think like, how is this person a human being that is walking within the same radius as me?"
"The biggest gap really is a time perspective. HR is a cost center and so it's never gonna be, or rarely ever going to be staffed as it probably should be. The number one priority for HR frequently in reality is compliance."
"It's really often basic free things that people can do to be that good manager. You can build those muscles when you have the right tools of understanding what motivates people."
"I don't want to be a road warrior. Really, people want to hear from the manager. What I love is hearing from HR teams that they had people that said, ‘I didn't want to take this training, but I really liked that.’"
Connect with Ashley
Website: www.managermethod.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ashleyherd