Successfully Navigating the Change From Peer to Manager

When evaluating a potential employer, the company’s track record for in house promotions is an important consideration. The prospect of upward mobility is an enticing benefit. However, moving from peer to manager can be a tricky transition if not approached with care for both the people and the process.

Teams develop a rapport when they work together for any period of time. Changes to personnel inevitably lead to shifts in the developed dynamics. Someone coming from the outside and joining a team in a supervisory role can observe this dynamic and build their own place within that structure. However, moving from within the team as a peer to managing that team changes not only the team dynamic but also how you interact with the team dynamic. Recognizing and embracing this change is vital to a successful transition.

To successfully navigate this transition, consider the following:

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The way you interact with the team WILL be different.

As a team member, the overall success or failure of your team does not rest on you. Once you move into a supervisory role, you now bear more responsibility for the output and the reputation of your team. Before, your responsibility was your own performance, and now the entire team’s performance is under your purview. What does that mean for your relationship with your team members? You are no longer a passive audience for the decisions made by your team. A funny story about a poor decision, an ill-advised social media post, comments alluding to resource waste, all things that you may laugh about or ignore as a team member are now things that may require action by you. The performance and reputation of your team is now YOUR responsibility. Your team will also be innately aware of this shift, and they will respond differently to you. Embrace that change.

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Care for your people and they will care for you.

?As a team member, you have a relationship with your co-workers. Moving into a supervisory role does not remove the relationship, it only changes it. You should not be some talking head, some removed authority figure. You should care for your team members, and they should unequivocally know that you do. Although your role within the team has changed, you are still a team and should take care of each other as such. Here are some ways you can care for your team:

• Be available: You will be busy learning the ins and outs of your new role, perhaps completing new taskings, managing more than you did before, but you need to be available to your team. They are not just employees, they are people who have valid needs, questions and desires and you need to make yourself available on a regular basis to address those things. If your team feels like they cannot come to you, they won’t and your team dynamic will develop without you in it.
• Be willing to put in the work: A common pitfall of management is requiring work from your team that you as a manager would not do. It leads to the perception that you feel superior and unreachable. People do not perform their best for managers who they believe feel superior. When your team has to step up to meet deadlines, or put in more hours, or take on new taskings, be willing to do the same. This will let your team know that although you are leading, you are all one team.
• Protect your people: In the ideal work environment, this would never be an issue. All company leadership, all policies and all assignments would be equitable and fair and there would be no issues. The reality of the workplace is often vastly different. People need accommodations, people get sick, people take longer to come up to speed on assignments. You are the first line of defense for your people. Protecting them shows that you value them.

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You do not need to fix everything.

As you take on the new responsibilities of leadership, do not fall victim to the mindset that YOU have to fix every problem. Although the performance of your time is ultimately your responsibility, you need to rely on your people. Delegation is an art, and you won’t get it right every time, but hold your team accountable and empower them to make changes and fix issues. Focus on processes and procedures that you can change or implement to improve team communication and efficiency and you may find that you need less “fixes.”

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You need to let your team develop their new dynamic.

As mentioned, the way you interact with your team will be different, but they will also need to develop a new interpersonal dynamic without you. Unless there is an issue that should be addressed with HR, how your team members interact with each other should be facilitated by you, but not managed by you. You need to foster a mindset in which your team members learn to rely on and trust each other, but you should not be controlling that dynamic.

The most important thing to remember as you transition from peer to manager is that we are all people. Approach situations with respect for people, and the how’s of the transition will be easier to achieve.