by Guest Pat Cuneen MD (Lighthouse Organisational Consultants)
A promotion into management is a time of celebration and excitement. But it’s important to recognise that your role has fundamentally changed and to embrace the transition with all that it brings. At CareerWise, we are experts in creating and shaping stellar careers that bring happiness and satisfaction to our clients. Here, we invite guest blogger Pat Cuneen to share wisdom from his book Becoming a Manager. As Managing Director of Lighthouse Organisational Consultants, he knows a thing or three about career success. This is his guide to making the jump up the career ladder: five important steps to transition from employee to manager.
An essential part of the big transition from employee to manager needs to be the clear realisation that your job has changed fundamentally. You may still be in the same organisation, even the same department. But that’s where the similarities stop. Your old and your new jobs are as different as chalk and cheese.
Your promotion to manager is not unlike a talented musician trading his or her instrument for a conductor’s baton. You no longer play that instrument in the orchestra. The conductor coordinates and perhaps even inspires the work of others, encouraging collaboration to produce a perfectly synchronised musical production. You too now need to lead and manage the work of others.
Not every organisation has a clear definition of the role and responsibilities of a manager. For many, the role is understood simply as the list of tasks to be completed: managing and controlling budgets, resolving technical difficulties that arise, shipping X number of widgets per month, supervising consultant-client reports, etc. Not surprisingly, new managers often find themselves grappling with the question: well, what is my job anyway?
So it is important to define your company’s expectations for the role of a manager. While you will always have to balance the technical demands and budgetary requirements of your department, your new and fundamentally different role is to get results through other people. For example, Proctor & Gamble, a highly successful international consumables firm for over a hundred years, leaves no room for ambiguity regarding the role of their managers. P&G expect their managers to create and lead a positive environment for performance improvement. They want their managers to foster creativity and have a healthy disregard for conventional thinking. They want them to embrace change and be rigorous in the execution of planned goals.
When doing the research for my book Becoming a Manager, many of the managers I interviewed mentioned that letting go of their old job was one of the biggest challenges they had. Consciously or otherwise, there can be quite a degree of holding on to the old job and its comfort zone. After all, it was their performance in their old job that generated the recognition that led to their promotion. However, to swing on the circus trapeze, you have to let go of one bar before you can reach out and catch the new bar swinging towards you. You need to make a clean and deliberate mental break from your old job and grasp the challenge and opportunity of the new one. You need to leave the old job and your comfort level behind as you stretch out towards your new role and responsibilities.
“There are very real dangers of continuing to do what you have been good at and recognised for. People are very slow to move out of their comfort zone. Things have moved on (your job has changed) and you have to change too”.
There is perhaps an understandable temptation to hold onto aspects of your old job. Undoubtedly, there can be a sense of gratification when you respond satisfactorily to an urgent matter as you did in the past. In the very short term, you may enjoy the satisfaction of the moment, but you’ll quickly find out that you’ve taken on too much yourself and neither your old nor new role will be done to anyone’s satisfaction.
A manager’s role is to delegate – to get things done by coordinating the work of their team. It can feel strange, when you are new to management, not to simply do the tasks yourself, but it is a key factor in a successful transition from employee to manager.
“Because I was trying so hard to impress, I micro-managed everything during that first year in the mistaken belief that I knew best how to do it. I ended up driving myself into the ground and everyone else nuts. Another consequence of my approach was that two of the best people in the department transferred out during that time”
Your transition into management is likely to be one of the most challenging times in your professional life. The early months are crucial as they can have a disproportionate effect on your success in your new role. First impressions do count – so go in armed with as much knowledge about the job as possible, and be prepared to change your usual methods. Gaining a management position might mean the end of one chapter, but it is the beginning of a brand new one, so expect to start learning a whole new set of skills!
CareerWise is Ireland’s leading specialist recruitment firm. Based in Cork, Shannon, Galway, Mayo and Dublin we can help you to find your ideal new management or executive job. We specialise in the Engineering, Supply Chain, Science/Pharma, IT and Accounting industries in Ireland, and we look forward to working with you. Contact us online now or call us at +353 (0) 21 206 1900 to arrange a consultation.
Joe Robbins is co-founder of CareerWise Recruitment. A graduate of the University of Limerick (Degree in Business Studies, 1985), Joe worked in the UK for five years where he specialised in materials management, production management and plant management for a number of companies.
He returned to Ireland in 1992 to become Operations Manager for a Cork-based start-up, FMC Automotive Division which was subsequently taken over by Snap-on Equipment. Joe managed the business re-location of this company to Shannon in 1997 before setting up CareerWise Recruitment in 1999.
He is a committee member of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) Mid-West region, and a former Director and Vice President of the Shannon Chamber of Commerce. Joe is former Chairperson of the Sixmilebridge Camogie Club and current Chairperson of the Clare County Camogie Board.
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CareerWise Recruitment. EastGate Village, EastGate, Little Island, Cork.
Phone: +353 (0) 21 206 1900
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