If you have been promoted to a management role within your team, it means that you will now be the boss of your teammates and therefore manage former colleagues!
Most of these colleagues need to recognize your strengths and understand why you got the job. Some other colleagues may feel a form of jealousy or be concerned about the future. For example, they might wonder what will happen to your relationship.
Prefer a video version? There she is:
For you AND for them, your promotion is a change, and you need to lead it professionally AND yourself.
Because you are not necessarily going to change as a person, and at the same time you have to integrate your posture as a manager. This will require some time to adapt and probably skills to be developed.
Here are some tips if you have to deal with former colleagues
First and foremost
If you were taking part in gossip, it’s over! If you hear gossip, you need to take action.
This does not mean that if you used to eat together at lunchtime, you should stop. I even invite you to continue!
A management and leadership role is first and foremost a relational role, so please don’t lock yourself in your office.
That said, you are now the voice of your employees AND your superiors.
You will need to be able to adjust performance through feedback and perhaps difficult conversations, as well as congratulate, and then know the strengths and areas of development of your employees in order to evaluate them…
So you need a certain objectivity.
You are now a manager. Tell yourself that you are looked at differently.
That’s a fact.
Your actions, your successes and your mistakes will be observed.
Here are 5 tips to make your transition as a former colleague easier
#1: Meet the team quickly
Meet everyone quickly! In teams and individually.
Express your enthusiasm as well as your vision if you already know it (otherwise, don’t get ahead of yourself!).
Ask them what they like about the team, what they absolutely don’t want to change, and what they would absolutely like to change! Listen, let them speak; you will then answer.
❎A mistake would be to play the superhero and want to do everything right away in reaction mode.
➡️ Take the information and *act* rather than reacting to please, for example.
#2: Establish one-on-one meetings
Set up regular individual meetings (between 1 week and 1 month) of about 30 minutes or 1 hour depending on the position, or the number of people you manage and their level of seniority, in order to have a quality moment with each one.
These meetings are very important and should only be postponed for extreme emergencies.
They serve to create a quality moment. Make sure that you are not only on operational topics.
If you find that you have too many meetings, make sure that your meetings are well-managed, productive, and engaging, even virtually.
#3: Make time to connect with others
Set aside time right away to communicate, prioritize, follow up. Don’t lock yourself in your office to “learn” the job and come out three months later!
Put time on your agenda to manage and connect with the people on your team.
To prioritize effectively, you’ll need to understand the impact of your decisions, the value of projects, and the risk of doing or not doing something.
Your team and your immediate supervisor can probably help you demystify these elements!
#4: Get informed
Find out about the daily lives of former colleagues you don’t know as well. It will demonstrate your curiosity and I bet you will learn something.
Just because you know the company or team doesn’t mean you should take it for granted.
You’re going to have to evaluate these people, have difficult conversations, celebrate their accomplishments, and support them on their career path (to name a few 😊).
Be curious!
#5: Connect with your peers
Connect with other managers like you and ask your questions. When you join a management position, you need resource people, and these people cannot always be your collaborators or your immediate supervisor. You need a network.
I had a discussion with one of my former managers. I had put this advice in his objectives of integration into his position.
Honestly, he did as he pleased, he never prioritized “exiting” operations, and never took the time to meet with clients or colleagues. He told me that he bitterly regretted it.
We had a problematic situation 1 year after his arrival, and people came to see me, his manager, because they didn’t even know that we had a new operations manager.
His relationships and credibility were never built outside of the team, it caused him inconvenience, and he didn’t achieve his goals.
What for? “No time,” he said.
I seriously invite you to connect with people, in your team, around, and with your customers. This will make all the difference for you. You will quickly see this.
In conclusion
So I invite you to create your plan for the next 12 weeks, which will have the objectives of:
- Get to know your team and the challenges of the department better.
Even if you were already there, don’t act like you know everything. You probably have employees who have a different vision than yours.
- Gain a better understanding of the expectations of your role.
A management role always includes a fuzzy part. Don’t wait for very drastic guidelines; Expect grey and build a good relationship with your immediate supervisor to better understand their expectations.
We have a self-training course whose objective is exactly this, see the details.
- Finally, get to know the other managers at your level better and build a network.
Ultimately, at the end of these few weeks, you should have a clear plan of your next steps, whether it’s improvements for the team, for processes, or for your own development as a leader.
Unique coaching has a specific coaching program for your integration into a management position and an agreement with a renowned coach for her online onboarding program.
See you again!