Last month you were one of the team. You had lunch together, complained about the same meetings, and occasionally rolled your eyes at the same decisions. Then you were promoted, and now some of those people report to you. The first team meeting feels strange in a way nobody warned you about.
Most new leads in this position swing between two uncomfortable modes. Some pretend nothing has changed, stay one of the gang, and avoid anything that might feel like authority. Others overcorrect, become formal and distant overnight, and start making decisions alone to prove they can. Both come from the same place: doubt about whether you have the right to be there.
Here is something steadying to remember. You were chosen partly because of how you worked with these people. The relationships are not a problem to be managed away. They are the reason you can lead this group better than a stranger could.
But the relationships do change, and it helps to say so. In your first one to one with each person, name it plainly. This is a bit odd for both of us. I would like to keep working the way we always have where we can, and I will need to make some calls you might not like. Tell me when I get it wrong. Most people are relieved to hear it said.
Then be visibly fair. Your former lunch friends will be watching to see whether they get special treatment, and so will everybody else. Give the interesting work out by reasons you can explain, not by who you are closest to. Where you have to choose between two people you like, choose by the reasons and tell them the reasons.
Accept that some things are lost. You will hear fewer complaints about management, because you are management now. Certain jokes will stop when you walk in. That is not rejection. It is the job, and trying to win it back by sharing gossip or criticising your own boss will cost you far more than it gains.
In six months you will not feel like a pretender any more. You will feel like the person who was trusted with a group of people you knew well and treated them properly.
Monday: book the first one to one with each person and decide what you will say in the first two minutes.
– Asael Shinder
Top comments (0)