From being a team player to being the boss

Congratulations on your promotion!

Nothing quite beats the feeling of being recognised and trusted to take the next step in your career. That is until the next day, when the champagne hangover is in full swing and you suddenly realise you are now a people manager and no longer an individual contributor. Suddenly, people are treating you differently, speaking to you in a way that feels strange, and the person you knew also wanted the job is now one of your direct reports!

The first thing to do is take a deep breath. You are not the first to be in this situation and definitely won’t be the last. This is the beginning of a journey, one that might take a while for you and your new team to get used to. It won’t happen overnight. There will be almighty highs that make it the best job in the world, but if you are anything like me, impostor syndrome will never be too far away.

So, I've put together some thoughts that I hope will be helpful for you. If you would like additional mentoring, please do check out my website and get in touch.

What type of leader do you want to be?

This might seem like a strange question to start with, but it’s worth thinking about from the outset.

For many years, as an Individual Contributor, I focused on getting the spotlight on myself. Getting that promotion, winning that award, being the best I could be, top of the league. It took me a long time (think months/years, not weeks!) to truly be able to say my success was about how well the team does, not how well I do. Passing that spotlight over to others can be hard and takes quite a bit of adjustment. Rarely are there awards for great managers, and those club trips are harder to come by! So don’t worry if you find yourself resenting it for a while. But you do need to come to terms with it, as no solutions leader who wants the spotlight on themselves has, in my experience, ever been successful in the long run.

The truly great Solution Leaders I've had the privilege to work with and be managed by have, first and foremost, led with empathy. That seems to be the core of their success. They have all had different skills and experiences, but empathy has been their driving force. If this is not something that comes naturally to you, there are many courses and some great coaching out there (get in touch if you want some suggestions). If I could give you one piece of advice when it comes to thinking about the type of solutions leader you want to be, learning how to be an empathetic one would be it! Next on the list is 'confident humility'. I could write an entire blog on this, but others have done a much better job at describing it, so a quick Google search will help you out!

What is your role as a leader?

'You were picked to be a solutions leader because you were the best SE and so you can now tell everyone else how to do the job.'

'You wanted to be a solutions leader because you love mentoring and supporting others.'

Whilst both of these statements could be true, the reality of being a solutions leader rarely means you will exclusively be mentoring or teaching your team to be as good as you! Of course, part of the job is to teach, mentor, and guide, but it’s far bigger than that. And the sooner you understand your role and what other people think your role is, the better. There is no cookie-cutter job description for a solutions leader. You will find the answer evolves as you do in the role. That said, if I were to describe my role as a solutions leader, it would be:

Doing everything in my power to guide and direct my team and remove as many obstacles as possible to allow them to shine. To be the most connected in my company and industry to get things done. To be a trusted leader for my customers to come to when they need something. To act with integrity and lead with empathy.

Yes, that’s a lot of words, but every single statement above carries meaning for me and what I strived for as a manager of a small team all the way up to being Vice President. Think about how you define your role, and constantly come back to it to make sure you are still on track.

You will bring different skill sets and experiences to the role than I did. That’s what makes solutions leadership so great in that you can mould the role to who you are.

That said, there are a few things that I would really encourage you to work on as you venture out into solutions leadership:

Networking

Many think networking is a dirty word, something the salespeople do. Honestly, I'm not a fan of networking for the sake of it either! However, if you want your team to succeed and consequently for you to succeed, then your network is possibly the most powerful tool you have. Your team is going to look to you to help them when they get stuck. A main part of your job is to know who can help them.

You need to figure out how things get done. Who has influence? Who can remove roadblocks? Who is a supporter and who is a detractor? What processes are in place and who developed them?

Don't panic—this won’t happen quickly, and relationships are always better developed naturally, but you should begin straight away. Check out the org chart, build yourself a relationship map, and start making friends and influencing people!

Delegation

I've been managing for more than 15 years, and I still struggle with this one! Effective delegation is not just about getting things off your plate (although that is sometimes a handy side effect!). Often, though, delegation actually means more work for you! Confused? Try to see delegation less as something that helps you and more as something that develops and supports others. Your role is too big and the responsibility too much to handle on your own. Believe me, I've tried! I often thought delegation showed weakness—like I couldn't cope with the role or doing everything myself was a way of protecting my team.

Being a parent taught me that protecting my kids from everything that could upset them and doing everything for them was actually negatively impacting their growth and development. The same is true in the workplace. If you don't delegate to your team, you are not empowering them to grow. You are showing you don’t trust them with tasks and you run the risk of micromanagement (and no one will thank you for that!). And, of course, you are likely to burn out!

Love feedback

Wow, I was not prepared for feedback when I became a solutions leader! And boy, did I need to get comfortable with it quickly! I was an award-winning SE and loved to get feedback because 99% of it was positive! But when I became a leader and gleefully asked for feedback, I was not ready for the word 'constructive'! I would have had some pretty strong words for the person who said feedback is a gift back then!

BUT, after 15 years of being in leadership, I still have so many blind spots that I simply don’t see. I NEED feedback to help me get better. Does it get any easier to receive constructive feedback? Not really, if I'm being honest! However, feedback from trusted people that is well-balanced, non-combative, and meant to help you grow should be sought after.

Celebrate Success

This one sounds so simple, but in the busyness of work, the relentless targets, and your packed diary, it’s often the thing that slips through the net. Everyone in sales loves to be recognised! Anyone who tells you otherwise probably shouldn’t be in sales! The end-of-year awards often become the only time people get the chance to have their name in lights. But there can only be one winner, so everyone else will be disappointed.

Figure out a way to have regular 'micro awards'. These don't always need to be monetary awards if budgets are tight. And they don't always need to be public. But take the time to recognise when someone has done a good job. Give them a call, offer to pay for a dinner out, give some additional time away from work (even just 'take the afternoon off'), post a message in a public channel, call someone out on a team call, or get the sales leader to give them a shout-out. There are so many ways to give people a boost, however small, and the results will be cumulative. Don’t lose focus on celebrating success.

Lead by example

This one might come a little more naturally if you have been an IC for a while. What you don't want to be perceived as is someone sitting in an ivory tower handing out tasks. Be the first to volunteer to try things. Don’t sit out of training or enablement tasks. Take on a booth duty shift. Introduce a team member doing the demo on stage. Be involved.

No one respects a leader who has completely lost touch with the realities of the job. Stay connected with the reality your team is living so you can lead in the way I introduced at the start of this post—with empathy!

If any of this has been helpful and you would like to chat some more, please do get in touch.