How to run a new manager program

A new manager's first year shapes more than their own career. It shapes how their team works, who stays, and what "good management" means at your company for years afterwards.

Yet most new manager programs are a one-day workshop and a slide deck. People leave with good intentions and a list of frameworks, then go back to a full calendar and a team that needs them today. By the time anyone checks in, habits have set.

The programs that work look different. They're spread over months, tied to real situations, and built around feedback. Here's how to design one.

1. Define what good looks like, in your own words

Before you teach anything, decide what you expect from a manager at your company. Most companies already have this: values, a leadership competency model, or the manager expectations in your performance reviews.

Use that language everywhere in the program. When the workshop, the feedback and the performance review all describe the same behaviors, new managers know exactly what they're aiming for. When each uses a different model, they tune out all three.

2. Start in the first two weeks

The first weeks set the pattern for everything that follows. Focus on the few habits that matter most early: regular one-to-ones, clear expectations with each person, and a shared agreement on how the team works. A team charter is a simple way to do the last one.

3. Get them feedback early, not at year one

Most managers get their first structured feedback in a performance review, months after it would have helped. Build in a feedback point around 60 to 90 days in: early enough that habits are still forming, late enough that the team has something real to say.

Frame it clearly as development, not evaluation. The goal is a steer, not a score. We wrote more about this in why a new leader needs an early steer.

The best time to course-correct a new manager is before they know there's a course to correct.

4. Pair learning with practice

Short cohort sessions work best when each one is tied to something the manager will do that week: a hard feedback conversation, a delegation decision, a team meeting they're redesigning. Teach, practice, then debrief what happened. A small peer cohort also gives new managers people to compare notes with, which matters more than most programs allow for.

5. Give them someone in their corner

Every new manager needs at least one person they can think out loud with: a coach, an experienced mentor, or both. That person is far more useful when they can see the same feedback the manager sees, so their conversations start from evidence rather than impressions.

6. Bring their manager in

A new manager's own manager has more influence on their development than any program. Give them a light role: a kickoff conversation about expectations, a check-in after the feedback point, and a short note on what the program is covering so they can reinforce it.

7. Measure behavior, not attendance

Attendance and satisfaction scores tell you people showed up and liked it. They don't tell you whether anyone manages differently. Track progress against the behaviors you defined in step one, from the people who see them every day: the manager's team.

A simple 90-day outline

Where Rally fits

Rally handles the hardest part to do well at scale: the feedback point. Stakeholders share feedback in a short AI conversation, each manager gets a profile in your company's own values and competencies, and their coach works from the same picture. You see how the whole cohort is progressing.