Stop Working You're a Manager Now

Maybe you didn’t dream of becoming a manager when you were a kid trying to be an astronaut or veterinarian. But years of hard work and crushing it meant that this trajectory was all but unavoidable

Congratulations are in order! Let’s go out for a drink and enjoy your flashy career milestone of being the first person to blame when work doesn’t get done according to the latest Gantt chart! (Please tell me you don’t use Gantt plans.)

But hey, at least you got that fancy new title, and hopefully a salary bump to go with it.

So… now what?

Being a first-time boss is essentially akin to becoming a whole new species of professional. You’ll need to quickly evolve from your former self into a more advanced, more disciplined, more emotionally intelligent being that thrives in the most inhospitable of work environments—ones you may have only seen from afar (or not at all).

Go ahead and wipe away those tears. You’ll get through this time of metamorphosis and emerge from your proverbial cocoon as a people leader worthy of leading…well, people.

But first, let’s talk about your new work life.

Why the shift is so mind-bendingly painful

So you got the raise. A career-defining moment that comes with it is greater power. But… what’s that quote? Ah yes: With great power comes great duty. And pain. Lots and lots of headaches. I think Uncle Ben forgot to say that part out loud.

Let’s get specific on what makes this shift feel as tough as the nails that are seemingly being hammered inside your skull—because if you can understand who or what is causing the pain, that can make the experience a bit more… manageable (sorry, not sorry).

1. You’re dealing with office politics for the first time.

As an individual contributor (IC), you were happily isolated in your own little world. You likely only had to focus on doing your job well, being a good teammate, and contributing to the goals of the bigger team. I’m sure you’ve had moments where you needed to navigate some tricky internal business politics or culture, but that was nothing compared to constantly needing to play “the game.”.

Your world is about to open up to the unfortunate and distressing truth that while the work is important, the workplace is just as important. Every choice suddenly has ripple effects across departments, teams, managers, and executives. You’ll need to constantly balance (often conflicting) business goals and priorities with individual skill sets and personalities, all in a way that somehow makes everyone happy, especially including those pesky stakeholders. (Spoiler: welcome to the losing gamble that is now your life.)

2. You have no training for any of this.

It’s not like going to management “school” is as simple as declaring a major in college. Sure, there are educational classes that help teach management theory. But how often does life happen according to those simple plans?

Not only that, but companies usually don’t provide even a modicum of training for managers. You’ll be thrown to the dogs, trying to figure out everything from scratch.

For instance, do you know…:

• How to run effective 1:1s?
• How to give informed feedback?
• How to help your reports grow into better professionals?
• How to advocate for your team by pushing for the finances and objectives that will lead to their continuous engagement and retention?

Consider yourself blessed if you have an empathetic, experienced employer taking you under their wing. More frequently, you’ll need to rely on studying, reading, and learning by failing over and over again until you start to figure it out.

3. You’re going to fail people.

It doesn’t really matter how attentive or caring or great you think you are. Somewhere down this new voyage of yours, you are going to let someone down. And hard. I guarantee it.

• Maybe it’s the one person who taught you all you know, and now you’ve had to make the painful option of passing them over for a promotion because you spotted potential in someone else.
• Maybe it’s your own boss, as you fight the good fight for your team’s priorities, only to get denied—and then you have to relay that awful news to the people relying on you.
• Maybe it’s yourself. We all go into management posts assuming we’ll be the exception to the norm, only to realize there are so many exceptions we become simply another example ourselves.

The shift is an emotional rollercoaster that you could never have completely prepped for ahead of time. It’s one thing to read about phantom syndrome; it’s another to feel it in full force as you begin to question yourself at every step.

If it makes you feel any better, it’s not simply fake syndrome—you'll actually do things incorrectly plenty of the time, too!

Yay?

What not to do anymore

Alright, so we’ve addressed some of the reasons why transitioning from an individual contributor to a first-time manager is the professional equivalent of being the first person to land on Mars. It’s extremely exhilarating, and you feel like a bona fide leader. But it’s also terribly hazardous, lonely, and unpleasant.

What do you do from here?

Well, the first step is to be conscious of what you should quit doing—basically all of the behaviors that were acceptable and necessary while you were an IC but are now anathema to being a competent people leader.

1. Stop assuming you can keep performing the same task.

We’ve all committed this terrible error. You acquire that new “Manager” title but still think you can continue diving deep into the tactical, ground-level work that your team is performing.

You can’t.

I’m serious here. Everyone claims they understand this, but they don’t truly comprehend it, not at first. Pause here for a while and let it soak in.

Your life as an individual donor is finished.

You have to adjust your perspective towards enabling your staff to accomplish the task instead of doing it yourself. You may have been a fantastic engineer, designer, or analyst. But now is the time to become a coach, facilitator, and people manager.

If you insist on keeping in the trenches, you’ll rapidly find yourself swamped and with virtually no time to focus on the wider picture tasks that come with being a manager (i.e., your job). At best, your reports will despise you for micromanaging and not allowing them authority. At worst, you’ll fail them by never offering the career growth possibilities, team advocacy, and strategic vision leadership that they need from you.

Again, say it with me:

Your life as an individual donor is finished.

#2: Stop believing success is about you.

You may have always been an IC who took work seriously, never missed a deadline, and volunteered for every new assignment. Maybe you felt it was the secret to getting forward in the world. (And maybe that worked.)

As a manager, though, that individualized method of functioning just doesn’t translate. Your employment is no longer about how amazing or competent or hard-working you are individually. It’s about fostering those attributes in your team and allowing them to be their best selves, both individually and collectively.

Going ahead, your contributions need to happen through other people, rather than you being the one generating results alone.

3. Stop solving every problem yourself.

Your years of training and instinct as an individual contributor make you want to dig in wholeheartedly every time an issue or challenge comes across your desk (or Slack channel or video chat or email). You know how to construct things quickly, you know all the hazards and shortcuts, and you get an adrenaline rush from coming up with innovative solutions.

Resist this impulse at all costs

You may believe you’re being helpful and efficient by fixing every single problem yourself. But you’re actually being tremendously destructive to your team’s growth and advancement. They’ll:

• start over-relying on you
• stop challenging their own critical thinking abilities
• lose their feeling of duty and ownership
• lose trust in their own abilities and freedoms

Don’t allow any of it to happen.

When challenges occur, force yourself to ask questions rather than supply answers. Push your staff to come up with their own ideas and recommendations. Guide them through the process of analyzing fundamental reasons, exploring potential options, and detailing probable outcomes. As much as it may pain you, do not quickly rush in with, “Here’s how we’re going to solve this.”

You are now the coach on the sidelines, offering perspective and advice, not the star athlete.

What to start doing

Enough about all the things you need to quit doing. Let’s share some more positive, constructive advice on the sorts of habits you must start embracing as a new boss.

#1: Start being incredibly transparent and creating trust.

One of the most crucial elements towards becoming a good manager is creating and keeping trust. Without that grounding, everything swiftly crumbles—decision-making becomes opaque, individuals eventually begin to feel misled, and toxicity can spread like a virus across the whole team dynamic.

The cure is to make a steadfast commitment to being as transparent as feasible in every circumstance. Constantly define the context around choices being taken, the reasons that went into the final judgments, and any residual doubts or risks that still persist. For example:

• If you have to forgo one aim for another based on directives from your leadership, make that known.
• If you weren’t able to get extra individuals or funding for the team, describe what happened.
• If you continue delaying a topic your team cares about, be clear as to why.

Remember: people can’t connect all the dots themselves—they lack the more comprehensive context you will be provided (and they can’t read your mind).

Transparency and trust will provide your reports with the knowledge and psychological safety they need to perform their best job.

#2: Start moving out of your comfort zone.

As an individual contributor, you were likely able to double down on the talents and professions that appealed to your inherent strengths and inclinations. If you were a loner, you may put your head down and focus more on solitary tasks. If you were an extrovert, you gravitated towards employment allowing you to engage with other individuals. If you enjoyed coding, you programmed. If you enjoyed visual design, you got to design all day.

Those days are gone now that you’re a manager. You now have to stretch yourself across many different activities and specialties.

• Maybe you’ll need to put on a public speaking hat to assist in advocating for your team’s work and raising their image.
• Maybe you’ll be required to get into conversations for contracts, budgets, or headcount.
• Maybe you’ll have to become a data storytelling pro to acquire buy-in for your plan and aim.

You’ll have to discover ways to build up new muscle memory and coping mechanisms for all of the difficult circumstances that management throws your way.

Give yourself numerous opportunities to mature into a well-rounded leader capable of establishing focus and attaining results via others.

#3: Start becoming a supporter and champion.

You have to start aggressively sticking up for your people and battling to guarantee they have all the resources, support, air cover, and opportunities they need from the wider business. You must make it an unbreakable commitment to go to war for your team’s objectives, career advancement, and general well-being.

This means:

• having uncomfortable discussions with your own supervisor and cross-functionally when your team’s workload gets overwhelming if their production is being hampered by detrimental dependencies.
• pushing for promotions even when the timing or money isn’t right.
• bringing real facts to light regarding areas the business has to change for the benefit of employee engagement and retention.

In other words, it means sticking your neck out repeatedly on behalf of the people who are relying on you as their leader. It demands an altogether new mental change towards putting advocacy over individual success.

Fight for your team so they have the space and motivation to deliver.

Wrapping it up

It might be one of the hardest changes in your job to go from being an individual contributor to a manager for the first time. You have spent years improving your specialized skills and focused on your own outputs. Now you need to switch gears completely. Instead of doing the work yourself, your job is to help a group of people do well by giving them advice, support, and direction.

It's a time of change when you feel confused, question yourself, and have to fight your old instincts all the time. What got you so far in your old job may be the very thing that is stopping you from doing well in your new one. You have to evolve into an entirely different kind of professional—where your effect is generated through others’ hands rather than your own.

It won’t be easy in any way. But if you can resist the urge to keep operating like an IC and instead get out of your comfort zone, build trust, and advocate for your team, you’ll be well on your way.

So quit your job already. You're now a manager.