KEY POINTS:
You're the boss. Your workmates have been your peers and colleagues for years but now that's changed.
You have just received a promotion and now you're the team leader and supervisor. Dr Sharon Rippin, organisational psychologist and director of Cerno, says this transition is one of the hardest shifts to make.
"A lot of people struggle and suddenly feel uncomfortable thinking that they've got to assert their authority or they don't do anything because they just want to be one of the team," Rippin says.
It's normal to feel under-confident, so you need to do some preparation. Make a conscious effort to think about the key differences between the requirements of your former front-line position and your new position of authority.
Some new managers will have a hard time pushing themselves outside their comfort zone.
"Sometimes people slip back into the skills that they may have had in their previous job because they're good at it and it's something they enjoyed," Rippin says.
But just doing what you've done in the past will not work here. Managing your own achievements is just one part of your new job. Now you'll have to manage the workload for the group, manage other people's time, coach them and performance-manage team members.
"It's easy to get stuck into just responding to problems as they arise rather than thinking about, 'What is the best use of my time? How can I shape this situation?"'
Rippin says to ask yourself this key question: "What words do I want people to use to describe my management style?"
Those words will likely begin to arise from your first one-on-one meetings with your former colleagues. The way you related to them as a peer will likely need to change now you're their supervisor.
"It's the first time that you've made the move from peer to manager and, frequently at that peer level, you've got a lot of informal interactions within your team," Rippin says.
In your first one-on-one meeting, she says you'd do best to leave some of that informality behind.
"If you create a little bit of structure, it makes it easier to have those conversations - especially when you're making that transition from peer to team leader."
Outline the discussion in terms of workload, upcoming projects, any support they may need, what's working and what isn't.
These discussions need to be scheduled and held in private.
Particularly if you've been friends with this former peer, you might not want to seem too overpowering in front of everyone. And just because you speak to each other every day in the office, it doesn't mean these serious issues are being addressed.
Joan Mather, organisational development consultant with Sheffield, warns care is needed in these initial meetings.
"Taking on a different persona and radically changing your behaviour or sitting differently is probably not going to be a good way to get respect," Mather says.
Feel free to talk with your team members about the fact that the way you interact with them might be somewhat different now.
"Acknowledge that the relationship has changed and recognise that not everyone may be happy with it."
If someone is not supportive of you, make a point to listen to them and tell them that you value their ideas. As the new supervisor, it's your responsibility to engage them, reach out to them and involve them.
"Give the former peer any opportunity that they might want to talk about any concerns," Mather says.
And, at the end of the day, it's important to recognise you're not the expert on everything. That's why you have a team. Don't feel like you have to be a know-it-all just because you're in charge.
"When people become arrogant and their egos get away with them, it's difficult to build rapport with people."
Team members with different personalities will need to become comfortable with the new situation in their own way.
"Understand that your former peers and former colleagues might need a little bit of time to adjust to you as well. Don't become impatient," Mather says.
You'll also be privileged to more confidential information as your team members share issues with you and as upper management includes you in more meetings.
"Obviously in a new management position you have access to information that you might not have had previously and that's also a judgment call that new managers need to think about. 'What do we share that's appropriate and what don't we share?"'
Confidentiality is particularly important when you're giving feedback to team members. You might have talked to another peer about a colleague's work performance before, but now you'll have to think twice about what you can say.
When you need to review someone's performance with them, you'll need to be open, objective and fair.
Chances are that this is where the first problems will arise. But don't be reluctant to confront team members about their performance.
"The worst thing you can do is not give the feedback because then you're not developing that relationship of openness," Mather says.
Good organisations will prepare new supervisors for what they can expect as they start their new role. Regardless of your technical skills, your people skills will count the most. Your job is to inspire, coach and lead.
"It's more about inspiring others than just doing for yourself. You're no longer necessarily doing the work but you're leading the team to do the work."
But organisations often don't focus enough on inducting people into their new management roles.
"The biggest thing is for organisations to set people up for success in whatever they do rather than afterwards saying, 'Oh my goodness, you weren't quite ready for that, were you?"'
If a new supervisor is not able to pull it off, the results can be disastrous.
"If people go in and they're not successful, you can imagine the impact on them personally and on the rest of the team," Mather says.
She says it's a good practice for organisations to groom their own people for leadership roles and grow their own talent pool.
Future leaders will have to achieve results not only through their own efforts but through the team as a whole.
"You can't just assume that you have the team's respect simply because they were mates or peers before. It's really about earning that respect, not necessarily becoming and staying everybody's best friend but earning that respect in your new role," Mather says.
Coaching psychologist John Groom says it can be a fine line between maintaining some professional distance from team members and being cold to your former friends and peers.
He advises that new managers show a genuine interest and concern for their team.
"We look to a boss not just to be good at what they're doing but we want to be able to like them - to warm to them," Groom says.
But if you've tended to literally or figuratively drink with the boys, you'll need to take a step back now you're in a position of authority.
"The minute that we're in that role, people will perceive things that we say or do more critically. It could be the identical thing that you said as a peer but if you're now saying it as the boss; they'll hear it with an edge," Groom says.
He suggests you might need to scrutinise your behaviours a bit more than in the past.
Look at your personal makeup and see if you might be better off leaving some of your personality traits at the door.
"Be able to say, 'Yeah, this is a part of me that was appropriate to bring to work in a matey peer way. Now that I'm moving into this management role, it's not."'
Such changes won't happen overnight.
"At the end of the day, I encourage people to remind themselves at work that however badly things go, that this is just another struggling human being trying to do the best they can in the circumstances."
www.davidmaida.com
