The long-time supervisor of your team will be retiring a couple of months from now, and you’ve been selected as their successor. Congratulations! You are about to move into your first supervision job. It’s exciting and scary at the same time, especially since you will be supervising a group of people who have been your peers for the past several years. You’re about to be promoted in place. When you move from being “one of the gang” to a supervisory role, you can expect to experience some (or maybe many) challenges. These could include:
- How quickly you adjust to what good performance meant for you as a team member and what it means now as a supervisor
- How well team members understand your new role, and their willingness to accept and support your new duties
- How well you understand and adapt to the workload and pace associated with the responsibilities of your new job
- How well you understand and deal with the uncertainty, ambiguity, and need for multitasking associated with your new role
- How quickly you learn important administrative tasks that you aren’t prepared for or experienced in
- How well you handle the wide variety of human resources, interpersonal communication, and people-focused issues that are part of your new job
If this sounds daunting, it should. The skills and behaviors that made you an effective member of the team – one of “us” – are not necessarily the same skills and behaviors required to be an effective supervisor. And regardless of how close and how strong your relationships are with your teammates, those relationships will change once you become their supervisor. Still, with good communications, particularly good listening and a commitment to lead the team rather than “boss” the team, you can be successful when you are promoted in place. What’s been your experience?
Paul
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