After nearly four years at my current job working for ‘the man’ and over a year acting as the lead dog in my team, I’ve been officially promoted to management … though of a different team than I had recently been leading. I’m very happy with the transition, I agree with the changes that were made, and I feel that I will rise to the challenge. But it is impossible to avoid having some level of trepidation when taking on a new role.
I’m a tech geek. And every job I’ve had has required me to be a creative problem-solver. In many of them I’ve been an army of one, so while I often became accustomed to being the go-to guy, the things that I flubbed on or that slipped through the cracks often were glaringly obvious and sometimes led to breaking points (usually by my choosing, but not always). I’ve never had a job where I could blend in. And even if I did, I don’t know that I could. In even the more recent roles where I have had a team, I’ve managed to stand out (in a good way, of course). But this shift has come with some hesitancy – some of which came from me.
You see, in my last job I had become a rock star in my role. So the powers that be felt I could easily rise to the challenge of managing something bigger. And not knowing fully what I’d be getting myself into I leaped forward with confidence and optimism. Unfortunately, my new role was equal parts avoiding doing the things I used to do so well and being a scapegoat for anything that didn’t go well as a result. It wasn’t a good experience. I was fortunate enough not to get canned and ended up stepping back to my previous role after a lack-luster 90-day run as a Project Manager (they realized that the title of Scapegoat would generally be unappealing to most comers). But as they say, with some things there is no going back – while I certainly climbed back up to rock-star performance levels and was greatly appreciated by most, some members of management didn’t know how to drop a grudge. So I looked for my next opportunity.
Luckily that next opportunity was where I am today and my only regret is that I hadn’t discovered this company sooner. And after I got through that initial ‘learning the ropes’ phase, I quickly attained rock-star status once again. But any time that management came up as a career path, I gave it pause. This job was too good and too important for me to fail again as I had before. And the last thing I wanted was to shift to a role where I didn’t get to do the trench-work that I so enjoy (seriously!).
But this shift now is different, and it’s better. First, I’ve had a good stretch of time to adjust to being able to delegate to and manage other resources as a team. And as such I’ve stretched my own skill-set to be able to think as a member and leader of a team rather than a single point of service. So now as I make this transition, I know what I’m getting into, I know what is expected of me, and I know that I can rise to the challenges I’ll face in this role – most importantly I know the team that I’m leading and I know that they won’t let me down in this transition either. Plus I know that even with this change, I will still be allowed and even expected to ford some trenches of my own.
Am I excited? Yes. Am I nervous? Definitely. Am I worried that I’ll go down in flames? Not in the least. I know where I stand, I know what is in store for me, and I know that I’m not walking this new path alone. What will I do when shit starts hitting the fan? I’ll manage. I am now, in fact, ‘the man’ (well, one of them at least).