Some of us will go through the transition of employee to management in our career. Some of us have been through it without even noticing it. While others remember the day it happened and the months following the change. Going from employee to manager can be terrifying as well as exhilarating at the same time. Some of us can’t wait for it to happen while others are unsure if its for them. It’s different for everyone. When it comes to management positions, you can embrace it or push it away. However, we are not the ones who decide when we are going from employee to management. It is our supervisor or whomever is hiring that decides if you are going to management. Sometimes you are not even looking for it or you think its not for you but your supervisor decides you are ready and knows you would be a great leader. They see something in you that you do not see.
In cases where you are thrown into a management position, your mind can be in a tail spin thinking about how everything could go wrong now that you make some of the key decisions for a team. All the what ifs come about. What if I make the wrong decision, what if I make a fool out of myself, what if I am terrible, what if nobody likes me. Nervousness is a normal feeling when starting something new in addition to have all questions. It indicates you care and in most cases, what you are feeling is self-doubt. The good thing about lower management is you are never alone. Most employees will want to help you out because they want the team to succeed and that means helping the one in charge of the team. Your peers as well as your supervisor are there to help you as well.
An important aspect after the first few months of joining the management ranks, is to look back at what you did in the first few weeks and ask yourself if it was as bad as you thought. Did you make decisions that were catastrophic, did you make a fool out of yourself? Were there moments that you enjoyed? It’s okay to be uncomfortable with the answers. It’s all new. The important thing is to learn from your mistakes. Whatever position you occupy mistakes will happen.
The next time you will get the call for a promotion stress might come over you. However, wash it down with thoughts of previous experience. Open the memory bank of all the good things that happened during your management positions. It’s important to realize that we are never alone in these positions. No one does it alone and never will. We are all learning and we need to accept a mistakes will happen when we enter a new role but we can minimize the impact by surrounding ourselves with great colleagues, peers, coaches and mentors.
Take care.