You feel you’re ready to transition from an individual contributor to a supervisor or manager. This is a significant step that comes with new roles and responsibilities to redefine your relationship with your fellow employees and your new peer managers. Let’s look at what you can do to prepare as a future manager.??
Becoming a manager requires skills development, relationship building and strategic positioning. Here are key steps to take:
- Master Your Current Role:? To climb the ladder, start by excelling in your current position, proving you are ready for a management role. Show competence, consistency, and leadership potential by consistently meeting or exceeding expectations. For example, if you aren’t particularly detail-oriented in your current role, don’t expect others to assume you will master that skill in a new role.? Examine your current work to see where polish or improvement is needed.?
- Develop Leadership Skills: There are many ways to develop leadership skills – through hands-on experience, or through reading, training, and applying what you learn.? For example, working on your Emotional Intelligence (EQ) enhances your ability to understand and manage your emotions, as well as influence others. Most jobs require effective verbal and written communication skills to convey goals, expectations, and feedback. Effectively managing conflict is also a core skill to prove that you are ready to lead others. Taking on new responsibilities in your current role demands excellent time management skills, allowing you to fit more mission-critical actions and decisions into your day.?
- Seek Opportunities: Actively look for opportunities to solve problems, improve processes, or take on added responsibilities. Acting like a manager without overstepping is tricky, but most people have more influence to effect change in their current roles than they realize. Volunteer to lead projects, sit on committees or take on tasks that involve coordination and strategic oversight, allowing you to mentor junior colleagues and display leadership skills.
- Expand Your Functional Skills:? Consider investing in training or certifications related to project management or your industry.? This could include learning a specialized process or technology used by the company, asking for a special assignment, or asking to participate part-time on a project in a different department to expand your skills and network. Many HR members will be more than willing to compensate for your training in becoming a manager.???
- Build Relationships: Build relationships with peers, current managers, and others outside your work group to prove that you are ready to be a future manager and a crucial part of an organization. Connections can become mentors or advocates to speak on your behalf. Take advantage of any mentoring program to seek guidance from someone in a leadership position, and proactively communicate your career goals and commitment with your manager.
- Ask For and Notice Feedback:? It can be difficult to evaluate your own strengths and weaknesses – so ask for feedback from others. Do you consistently receive the same corrections or miss the same content elements in your work? If so, concentrate on filling those gaps – routine feedback provides important clues for change and makes it clear to your superiors your desire to grow and develop as a potential leader.
Management roles take time to earn. Demonstrate that you are committed to the organization’s mission and long-term growth for both your team and your organization. Focus on excellent delivery and continued improvement to take advantage of leadership opportunities as they arise.
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