Shruti was on top of the world. Her efforts had finally paid off. She had been promoted to the position of a team lead. She was finally a ‘boss’ and had a team of three reporting to her. She would soon get her own cabin and be invited for the weekly leader meets. She was delighted with her increased pay package and the fancy new designation! Shruti felt her career dreams beginning to come true. She was basking in the glory of the promotion as congratulatory messages and emails poured in.  It was indeed a beautiful time!  

A few months into the new role, Shruti was struggling to manage her team and to meet the requirements of the new role. She was stretching beyond office hours, working harder than everyone else, trying to complete all the tasks her team had to do. She had quickly figured out that doing the work herself was much faster than spending precious time trying to get things done by her team members. She was appalled by the mistakes her team kept making. Shruti had always prided herself on an error free output and she now found her reputation at stake. Quite frankly, this is not at all what she had expected when she was promoted. How had things gotten to this?

Very few first-time managers are really ready for what comes after the promotion. What usually starts off as excitement and happiness can quickly turn to overwhelm, frustration and anger. Like Shruti many people underestimate what the promotion to a first-time manager really means.  

A promotion is a ‘transition’ into a new role. It is a time of change. It demands a shift in thinking, a different mindset and a change in the ‘work’ to be done. It means letting go of the ‘work’ done earlier to make time for new ‘work’ and performing to a new set of expectations.

Easier said than done! Imagine leaving behind the work which had so excited you! The work which you were obviously so good at and which was probably the very reason for your promotion.  It could be different things for different people – the thrill of meeting your stretch targets, or converting that difficult client, or clinching that deal, or the satisfaction of resolving that customer query or creating a new code for that program. These were the tasks where you had mastery. And now you must leave it behind? Really? But what about the thrill and sense of achievement that these tasks had given you? And why must you leave it behind?

The new role has new demands and you must free up you time to do those things. The thrill and sense of achievement must now come through new things. Those new things could be guiding your team to do these tasks, coaching them as they get better, enhancing their performance by giving feedback, delegating work and supporting them.  It is now time for you to develop your team and give them the opportunity to do these new tasks while supporting them as they learn. New things could also mean, building the business, acquiring new clients, exploring new markets and many other things.  

To succeed in your new role, you may be required to must leave behind some very dear things to make way for the new things you have to do. Sometimes it is relationships that must be left behind as they change and evolve. Many newly promoted employees struggle to make the shift from being a peer to becoming a boss or becoming a peer to people who were earlier their seniors.  It is also necessary to create new relationships with stakeholders, customers, peers, and seniors. Last, but not the least, as a people manager you must learn to operate with much less credit than is due to you and give most of the credit to your team.  

The good news is that this transition can be managed.  In fact, this is the first of many transitions which will come up in your corporate journey. Every transition will allow you to do bigger things and grow yourself through the rungs of the corporate ladder.

Attending a first-time manager program, will help first-time managers embrace this new mindset. It will also focus on building new skills like coaching, delegation, setting goals, giving feedback, developing people, managing performance, collaborating: all of which will be crucial for success in this transition.   

Time for some reflection:

• How are you helping your first-time managers transition?
• If you are a first-time manager, how are you managing this key career transition?