Making transition from employee to boss can be tricky
Being named as a new boss can be a wonderful career coup, but it can seem more like facing a hive of killer bees when you've been asked to be the boss of your former peers.
Bossing around the people you used to work alongside - sharing the trials and tribulations of your work and personal life - can be awkward, difficult and stressful. The people you've shared lunch with, hit the after-hours pub with and whined and complained with now report to you and depend on your leadership and guidance to help them do their jobs.
It's no wonder that many supervisors faced with such a scenario fail, or get off to such a lousy start that they never successfully transition into the management role. At the same time, workers may feel betrayed, angered and frustrated with the new role of a former peer, further impacting the ability of the new manager to lead.
Mitchell Kusy, a leadership and change professor at Antioch University, says that the key for new managers emerging from the employee ranks is to understand they can be friendly with former co-workers, but being friends probably is no longer in the cards.
"The minute you let a friend get away with something, then you've shown that you play favorites, and it will be nearly impossible to change that perception," Kusy says. "It's very difficult to be a good leader and still try and be friends. You have to determine what your priority is. If you can't be someone who can give a friend hard advice, then maybe the job isn't for you."
How should a new manager get off on the right foot with former co-workers? Kusy suggests:
- Be fair. Leaders who demonstrate what is called "process fairness" are much more successful. That means that a manager should give every staffer the opportunity "to address their views and the views of others," Kusy says. By meeting with all staffers individually, the new manager can find out exactly what each person does and how they do it, and then determine if that workload is fairly distributed.
- Listen. "Button up your mouth and just listen to their views," Kusy says. "Your response should be: 'I understand."' The key, he says, is to make sure that they understand that what they share will be kept confidential. And then, he stresses, walk the talk and don't blab anything to anyone else.
- Remove yourself from the loop. You no longer have the same relationship, and it's best if everyone understands that from the beginning. By distancing yourself from the others (avoiding gossip around the coffee pot, not socializing outside work), it will become clear that while you're friendly, you're not friends. "The probability of maintaining a friendship is low," Kusy says. "You must accept that distance as a precursor of success. Remember: Friends don't terminate friends, and terminating someone is something a boss must sometimes do."
- Let others know who you are. "Gather everyone on your first day and tell them that you know it might be a bit scary for them to have you be their boss - but that you're a bit scared, too. Let them know you have some trepidation, but that you have certain strengths that you think you can bring," Kusy says. "Then outline what those strengths are and how it can help them."
- Open your door. Let staffers feel free to talk about their concerns with you whenever they want, and encourage them to address any fears directly with you. Listen attentively, and then make sure in the first weeks you model the behavior you want them to have.
- Find a mentor. One of the smartest things a new manager can do is rely on the experience and wisdom of someone who has been through a similar experience. Whether than mentor comes from within the professional ranks, or from a personal arena, a new manager can benefit "from someone else who has been through the school of hard knocks," Kusy says.
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