August FAQ - I Just Got Promoted and Nobody Trained Me

Finding practical answers to frontline leadership questions.

One Friday each month, I dedicate the post to looking at some questions I have heard recently from developing leaders. Sharing those questions, along with my thoughts on them, helps me get the information to as many leaders and future leaders as possible. If you have a question about leadership, or just a situation you would like some additional insight on, please email me at Effective Retail Leader. Let’s take a look at this week’s question.

I just got promoted to store manager and nobody actually trained me. Where do I even start?

Great question, and a common one. I have seen more comments about this on social forums like Reddit than almost any other new-manager challenge. In almost every interview I’ve done with prospective store managers who were current assistant managers, I’ve said there’s always more to the role than you can see. Every assistant manager thinks they already know as much as their store manager. They see the decisions, notice the mistakes, and watch things get missed while wondering how it keeps happening. So when the promotion comes, they walk in believing they are already up to speed.

I know, because that was me once upon a time.

What I learned fast is that the assistant manager seat only shows you part of the job. There is a whole set of things pulling on a store manager that you cannot fully understand from the assistant manager seat. And that is even more true today than it was 30-plus years ago, when I was first promoted to store manager. Once I had the title, all of that landed on me at once, and suddenly I understood why my old boss missed some of the things I thought were obvious.

That is the unseen reality of the store manager role. I don’t want this to sound like a common trope, but that is the part that no one tells you. There is more below the surface than you can see until you are in that seat every day. It is not that you are unqualified. You got the job for a reason. The real challenge is walking in convinced you already know how to do it. That is the moment you stop asking questions and start making statements, and that is where new managers get into trouble.

So here is where I would start.

Find someone to ask

Get time on the calendar early with your district manager to talk about the position, expectations, and training. District managers are busy, too, so it can be easy for them to promote you into the role, assume you’ll make the transition quickly, and only later realize that training is still required. And it is not just how to complete the weekly reports, join the conference call, and write the schedule.

Next, find a mentor. You probably already have a sense of who that person is. Most districts have a training store manager, or at least one manager others go to for help. If you do not know, ask your DM. Then go to that person and be direct about whether they will help you.

Start asking your questions. All of them. If that makes you sound like a toddler in their “why” phase, so be it. Nothing should be off-limits, including the questions you think are too basic.

Almost everyone feels some impostor syndrome after a promotion. You wonder if you moved up too soon. You worry that asking a simple question will make someone think you are in over your head. The person you are asking has probably felt the same way. They are not sitting there keeping score. They want to help.

One thing that will make those conversations more meaningful: come with a idea, not just a question. Instead of asking, "What should I do here?" try, "I am thinking about approaching it this way. What do you think? What might I be missing?" Same question. Completely different signal. One says you need an answer. The other says you are thinking it through and want a second set of eyes. That builds credibility and engagement with your peer, mentor, or boss.

Get to know the team before you change anything

Do not walk in talking about how your old store did things. I have seen new managers do this in their first week. They start making declarations: “In my last store, we ran this differently. We are going to change that.” Every time they do it, the team hears the same message, which is that the new person has already decided the store is doing it wrong.

Come in curious instead. Be humble about being new to the role while still being confident that you belong there. Sit down with your team and ask them real questions:

• What has been working well here?

• What would you want to make sure I do not change?

• What has not been working?

• If you were in charge, what would you do first?

That last question will usually open up the conversation and tell you more than any of the others. It engages the team, and it helps you see how they think about the business and what makes it go. In asking these questions and staying curious, you become a partner rather than the new person in charge trying to prove something.

If you got promoted inside your own store, this is harder, not easier

A lot of people assume the internal promotion is the easy version. You already know the team. You already know the store. What is there to learn? Plenty. And now you have a relationship shift to manage on top of it. You still have to ask the same questions, but they sound a little different:

"I know we have been doing this a certain way, and I was part of that too. But what do you think we could do differently? What have I been blind to? What was I missing from where I used to sit?"

That last question shows a level of vulnerability and openness in your new role. It tells your team you know your view was incomplete, and that you are not going to pretend otherwise now that you have the title. You need to be prepared to hear anything, and not react or defend, but listen and process.

Learn the numbers, but stay curious about them

Do not put this off.

Get familiar with the company scorecard from a new perspective. Whatever the key reports and P&L are, even if you have seen them before, you now own those outcomes in a different way. Understand how these are really used for feedback and follow-up at the different levels of the company. What you’ve seen from a previous role may look very different in the ownership role of running the store.

If you are not sure where to focus, ask your DM or your mentor directly: What do you see as the biggest opportunity here from a reporting standpoint? Then take the same approach you took with your team in process conversations. Be curious, not judgmental.

Your team probably already knows whether the numbers are good or bad. They are not oblivious. So when you ask about them, ask like someone trying to understand, not someone assigning blame. "Why do you think this looks the way it does?" opens a discussion. Anything that sounds like an accusation gets you surface-level guesses, silence, or excuses.

And do not assume a rough number means the previous manager or the team failed. Sometimes there is an opening because someone got promoted into a bigger store. Sometimes you are inheriting something that is already working. Understand the situation you are actually in before you decide what to fix.

Walk the floor with fresh eyes

This one seems obvious enough that people skip past it, so I want to call it out specifically. Walk your store the way a customer would, not the way you walked your old store. As you go, ask yourself: If I were new to this company, or a shopper who did not know any of the background, what would I be seeing right now?

Make your notes, and then use what you noticed to start conversations instead of issuing corrections.

"I noticed this area looks like this. Why do you think that happens?"

"This section looks great. What are you doing here that we could use somewhere else?"

Both questions get you information. Neither one puts anybody on the defensive.

The thread that runs through all of it

Curious, not judgmental.

That applies to your team, your numbers, and your sales floor. In your first few weeks, the most valuable thing you can do is collect information and build trust, not prove you deserve the job. You already have the job. The manager who walks in asking good questions will know more in thirty days than the one who walks in thinking they already have the answers will know in six months.

If you are working through a bigger transition, you may also want to read Move from Retail Manager to Leader and What is Situational Leadership?

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