So You Were Promoted? Here Are 5 Secrets You Should Use To Transition To That Senior Position
By Perminus Wainaina
“Last week I got promoted from field officer to a project manager. I know I should be happy but I feel overwhelmed. I’m struggling to know what to focus on.
And I feel like I’m wading in quicksand.”
Such a great puzzle right? It’s common and I call it the promotion challenge!
It is easy to understand why you may long to secure your comfort zone at that accounts office and remain in a predictable, steady, and safe position where you don’t struggle much.
One of the more difficult career situations I’ve coached people through is being promoted from within a department to become the manager of that group.
As my client found out, going from an employee who worked under instructions to a project manager who is fully in charge can make for a stressful transition.
Maybe you fear that taking a promotion would mean greater responsibilities and longer hours, thus taking away more hours from your family or you feel inadequate that the little skills you’ve accumulated so far will not fit into the big shoe that has been entrusted to you.
Let me take you through 5 points on how you can make this transition much much easier.
- Firstly, seek to improve your self-awareness skills.
This is very important in understanding how you shall handle your new role.
Invest in developing yourself and understanding your response to challenging situations. How do you deal with stress?
How do you learn in novel situations?
How do you prefer to make decisions? How do you handle different issues under different set of conditions?
Remember leadership and personality style assessments can help you gain insight and direction that is required to handle your new role.
Don’t just assume you’re good at it.
- Confront your ‘I don’t know if I can do it’ fears
Maybe you were in a junior position that required less effort and now you have a completely new hat.
Responding to instructions is a different skill set to assessing requirements and then giving instructions as a supervisor!
And as usual, not everyone knows where the fine line is between assertiveness and aggression and in your desire to assert your authority in the new role you might step over the line at times.
So take some time and do some self-analysis as to why you fear taking on your new role.
Are you really inadequate? Is the fear of change or it’s just a normal reaction to change?
You can even take some short leadership skills training to boost you confidence in leadership or even appoint a mentor to learn from and share challenges with or a career coach who will help you keep on track.
- Seek to understand and learn of the new skills required for your the role
You will need more soft skills in this role as opposed to the role you previously had.
And since you don’t want to appear clueless, take an initiative to learn of the skills required for that role.
If it’s a sales supervisor role or sales manager position, you might need to recheck your analytical skills, excellent sales and negotiation skills, good planning and organisational skills and maybe the your ability to work calmly under pressure.
Just make sure that you are well armed to perfectly perform the responsibilities of that position. Take trainings classes if you have to.
- Now you can learn to embrace the new change!
In any new circumstance in this life, what you will need to succeed is just learning new ways of doing the new role and most importantly, letting go of old ones even if they’ve driven your career success up until now.
So were you the accounts manager?
You were used to minimal social interactions, you never needed to supervise anyone and now as a chief accounts officer, you need you learn how to oversee all accounting functions in your department.
I always call it being flexible even when you think you can’t.
You need to unlearn your old ways of working in order to create room for new ways.
- Finally, don’t forget to leverage your networks
In every career move you shall make in your lifetime, you will need both knowledgeable insiders and impartial outsiders to provide you with realistic feedback and other kinds of advice.
And now as a more senior employee, this goes without saying.
This is the time to build not just any networks but strong networks that will lead to the success of your new role.
Remember you are now fully in charge and any decision you make affect the business directly.
Attend executive meetings, meet with other people in the same position as you and compare notes when possible.
In conclusion,
Most new employees into more managerial positions find transitions so tough they subsequently resign.
Yet what is required of them is simple!
Just believe in your decisions and get comfortable with the idea of being in charge.
Don’t be afraid to consult more experienced mentors or seek career mentor-ship from a professional career coach or even utilise the services of consulting firms.
If you keep focused, stay calm, and are willing to work hard, you will find it extremely rewarding and fun!