What Advice Would You Give a New Marketing Manager On Team Management?

Foster Creativity and an Open Environment

Creating an environment where team members feel at ease expressing ideas, concerns, and feedback has helped to enhance team cohesion and productivity. At our company, we usually foster consistent communication to ensure alignment with goals, fostering a culture that encourages creativity and collaboration.

Actively seeking and appreciating input from team members has cultivated a sense of ownership and commitment and has been essential for maintaining a high-performing marketing team. Sustaining an open dialogue allows me to cultivate a positive and collaborative work environment, fostering creativity and propelling successful marketing initiatives.

Understand Team Strengths and Weaknesses

Take time to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the team. Building rapport with them is more important than trying to force them to deliver results in a short period of time so that you look good in front of your superiors.

Prioritize Storytelling Over Metrics

The advice for a new Marketing Manager is to prioritize storytelling over just focusing on metrics when managing a team. Metrics like click-through and conversion rates are crucial for gauging the effectiveness of campaigns, but they frequently fail to consider the emotional bond that your content builds with readers.

Brand storytelling is essential because it captivates, informs, and inspires your audience while fostering loyalty and trust. Empower your team to be storytellers, embracing unique voices and creative formats.

Analyze user feedback, social media conversations, and brand mentions to understand the impact of your content. Remember, marketing involves crafting compelling narratives that connect with people, fostering long-term brand loyalty, and building a passionate community. Empowering your team to be storytellers will lead to improved metrics.

Identify Team Members' Friction Points

I talk to hundreds of top-tier leaders every year in my job as an executive recruiter. Early on, I learned a fascinating, deceptively simple tip for new managers.

When stepping into a new role as a Marketing Manager, try directly asking your team members where they feel stuck or encounter resistance in their daily and weekly tasks.

Asking this simple question reveals critical insights: if everyone is struggling at the same point, it's a clear signal that the process itself needs refinement. Alternatively, if everyone answers, they struggle at a different point, which gives you an instant understanding of how to effectively support each team member.

By identifying their friction points, you realize exactly where you can expect them to struggle to perform. That is the pinch point at which your attention, engagement, and accountability will help them the most, and also give you the highest return on the time you invest.

This isn't just about problem-solving; it's about proactively creating an environment where your team can thrive and deliver the results needed, ensuring both their success and yours.