From being colleagues to becoming their Boss
Sometimes you or your co-worker gets promoted and therefore peer to peer relationship transforms into a boss-subordinate relationship. Making the leap from co-worker to leader is difficult, but there must be a change from how you have behaved before.
From Peer to Leader – Dos and Don’ts:
1. Don’t cheapen your role
Don’t confuse the issue, by roaming around telling all your prior co-workers to “not worry” and that “you won’t change”.
Better, tell them you plan on taking your new role seriously, and that you will need their help in making sure you do the right things. Remind them of all the ideas “we” had prior to the big move. Above all, this is the time for them to meet you as a “manager”, not simply as a co-worker or friend.
2. Make Boundaries
“Friendly” is good, and the compassion you have and show now will shine through in your success as a leader.
That friendliness, however, will need to be tempered, or balanced, with boundaries. You are the same “Mike” or “Wendy” that you were yesterday.
You have entirely new responsibilities. You will be now measured as a success or failure on how others do. You will now or in the foreseeable future, need to make some hard decisions.
That’s why you will need to maintain a degree of distance.
3. Get “out of the loop”
Previously, you were in on regular gossip, discussions about management, and may be even some venting and/or complaints about the company.
That must stop now completely. Avoid the gossip. Stay clear of coffee pot gatherings and most after-work happy hours.
4. Ask. Shut up. Listen.
It really is that simple. Don’t you remember how often you and your friends would say things like, “if they would just ask us, “we told them, they just didn’t listen, “ or even the favorite, “I told you so…?”
Ask you prior co-workers what they do, specifically; ask what you can do to make their job better (easier, faster or more productive)
Then, the hard part: Shut up and listen.
Don’t speak for a while. Give them the chance to talk. This is their first opportunity to address their “new” boss. Make it something memorable for them. Take notes. Don’t commit unless you‘re sure of your authority. But certainly say “that sounds reasonable to me” if appropriate.
If you nail this down right, it’s a skill that will prove invaluable to you as a leader in the future.
5. Leverage your relationships.
Stop worrying about what someone is now going to think about you, or how you will look to your prior co-workers now that you have ‘got the washroom key.’ Use those prior relationships to make success all around.
Go to prior friends and ask them do some of the things they may have proposed, or to be the “point-person” because of their known skills in influencing co-workers and others. May be you can get them to remind you of some of the processes you both may have discussed earlier.
You don’t need to entirely jettison those prior relationships. Put them to good use going forward.
Leadership – truly effective, successful leadership – is not necessarily difficult, though we sometimes make it that way. It’s simple principles, common sense, and the ability to trust our learned instincts.
Leadership is a skill, and one that is as critical at this first juncture as it is for a Fortune 100 CEO. Yesterday, you may have talked about your boss. Today, they may be talking about you. Making the leap from co-worker to leader does not have to be difficult, but it absolutely must be a change from how you behaved before.
- Rupesh Kalantri
CAclubindia
