Your first 30 days as a new manager

Your instinct in month one will be to prove yourself by doing — fixing things, making calls, shipping. Resist it. The first job of a new manager is to listen: meet every person on your team one-on-one and ask what's working, what's broken, and what they'd change if they had your job.

Write down what you hear and look for patterns. The problems three people mention unprompted are your real priorities — not the ones you assumed walking in. You'll earn far more trust by acting on what the team actually told you than by arriving with a plan.

Hold off on big structural changes until you understand why things are the way they are. Most "obvious" fixes were already tried; knowing why they failed is what makes your version work.