[sketchyt]

I stepped into a leadership role about five years ago after a career of actively trying to avoid it. I wound up liking it way more than I thought I would. Here's what I learned:

• The best staff are the ones who crave being left alone. For them, your role is to simply guide them and help when asked.
• If you're constantly micromanaging an employee, it isn't going to work out long-term.
• Treat them like human beings. The ones who like to take advantage of that will come out of the woodwork and you're going to want them gone.
• Be upfront, clear and direct about what you like and dislike, professionally. For example, I despise gossipy behaviour in meetings and I get ornery whenever that happens.
• Speaking of which, trying to eliminate gossip within your own department is difficult but well worth the effort.
• Some of your staff will be high performers. Some just want to do their job and clock out. That's ok.
• As mentioned, regular one on ones are very important. They don't need to be an hour... some employees can do with 15-20 minutes. Typically, I go over their current/next weeks' projects, whatever they want to share about their personal lives, and anything I can help them with. I do very little talking in these.
• You are not perfect, trying to act like you are will make you look like a tool. It's ok to say you don't know, but you'll find out.
• Where possible, publicly give them credit for wins and successes. If there's going to be a negative interaction, do it privately.
• If they're working on something with a high level of risk / reward, you're probably going to want to work on that directly.