Newsletter 3 - Friendliness - does it work at work?
You've been working with a team, and they're your mates. You've always got on very well together. Now you've been promoted and they're "your staff".
It's quite a shift for all of you.
Several people have asked how to manage this. They have questions
like:
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"My staff are taking advantage of our friendship, or are they? Am I being too tough?"
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"The people who I was working with say that I've changed. Have I?"
Becoming a manager IS a transition and your behaviour and way of thinking may certainly need to change. You can still be friendly in the normal civil way, but your main priority is the work and the best way to get it done.
In the same way, when you're driving a car, your main purpose is to drive it safely and get to your destination. Being nice and friendly comes next.
All true, but how do you actually deal with your former team-mates?
The main thing is to stay clear about your role. Being a manager is a job and a role like any other - it doesn't necessarily make you bigger or better than other people.
Your task is to find a way to make things work. If your team are trying to make you be different, and not in fact manage them, then they aren't really coping with the transition themselves.
It's your task to help them deal with it. Listen to what they say, be cheerful and reasonable, and then get on with the job. Avoid gossip and jokes about the organisation or other people.
To begin with you may feel rather lonely, and may feel that the
team are leaving you out. That may be a necessary stage, sad for you but necessary.
See it as a stage, and let things be. Then as you develop your new working
style, the team will adapt and your relationship will settle to the right
level.
February 2009
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