How to Effectively Make the Leap from Peer to Boss

Making the leap from peer to boss is challenging.  If you properly assess the people you now lead, you’ll make the transition smoother and get better results from doing so.

The following is an excerpt from Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results (you can get your copy here). This post focuses on how to make that challenging leap going from peer to boss.

Making the leap from peer to boss can be awkward. People who were your buddy the day before now report to you. Leaders who find themselves in this situation can use the Leadership Matrix to remove emotion from the situation. They can assess their former peers and their peers’ teams more objectively and determine where they need to spend their time and energy.

We encourage leaders who move from peer to boss to conduct a Leadership Matrix assessment on their teams – both for first and second level reports. Get an objective sense for the results your team members are delivering. Think through how you’re going to invest your limited leadership capital. These situations call for you to be judicious in where you spend your time and energy.

Remember – this is a larger role for you. Much of your time and effort will be spent learning your new job. Adapting to your new role leaves less time and energy for you to spend on your team members. Once you have a sense for where your team members are on the Leadership Matrix, agree on a plan for how you’ll spend your time and energy.

One leader we’re familiar with – we’ll call her Leigh – made the jump from peer to boss. She was great friends with her three coworkers – Harry, Brent, and Marcy. Everyone on the team knew Leigh was a Rising Star and expected her to be moved into the next open Director’s role.

A reorganization announcement was made and it included Leigh’s promotion notice. The new organization chart had Harry, Brent, and Marcy reporting to Leigh. All three of them had new roles. It was a lot of change to swallow all at once.

Leigh sat down with her new team and acknowledged the situation’s awkwardness. She told them she’d be open and fair yet would expect their full support and continued great performance from them.

Leigh’s first self-assigned task was assessing the results her people were capable of and how much of her leadership capital she would need to invest in them. Her initial assessment told her Harry was a Rising Star, Brent was a Square Peg, and Marcy was a Squeaky Wheel.

Harry had run operations similar to the ones he was newly responsible for. She expected him to continue delivering great results and he wouldn’t need much input or guidance from her.

Brent’s new role was new territory for him. He came from a technology background but he’d been put in charge of an operational function with a large team of front line personnel. He was clearly uncomfortable with the new role. Leigh knew she would have to invest time coaching him on how to be effective.

Marcy was familiar with the type of work her new role required but she had a habit of asking permission before making decisions. She gathered excessive amounts of input and guidance from her prior boss on even the smallest of initiatives. Leigh didn’t see the behavior changing easily. She knew she would see Marcy in her office quite often. While Marcy always delivered results in the past, they came with high interaction costs.

During the first few months in her Director role, Leigh gave Harry space. He was happy to have Leigh’s trust and the freedom to lead his team how he saw fit. The results he delivered on his first few projects were outstanding.

Leigh met with Brent several times a week to discuss how to lead a front line operations team. She taught him her most effective techniques for inspiring front line personnel. As he applied these new approaches, Brent became more comfortable in the role. Leigh was able to scale back the amount of time she invested in coaching him.

As far as Marcy, Leigh told her “I trust your capabilities Marcy. What I’d like you to start doing more of is making decisions on your own and then update me once you’ve made them.” Leigh told her the reason for this was she wanted Marcy to build her leadership and decision making skills. The only way for Marcy to do so was making decisions on her own. Each week, Leigh noticed fewer and fewer interruptions by Marcy. Eventually, Marcy was making many more decisions without assistance. While she still came to Leigh for guidance, it was much less frequently than it had been during the first few weeks after the reorganization.

Leigh’s use of the Leadership Matrix and the suggested leadership techniques steered her through a tricky situation. She maintained her positive working relationships with her coworkers while getting great performance out of them at the same time.

This use of the Leadership Matrix will shows leaders in a peer-to-boss situation how to avoid the pitfalls of not making difficult choices because someone was their friend the day before. Leigh could have avoided having those tough conversations with Marcy or sidestepped the issue of needing to coach Brent because he lacked skills. Instead, the Leadership Matrix highlighted these behaviors that needed changed and enabled Leigh to build a fair plan for making these improvements. You can be as effective as Leigh by taking a similar approach.

Using the Leadership Matrix can diminish a leader’s potential bias to spend all their time with their high-performing friends when they should instead be spending their time improving lower performers. It would have been easy for Leigh to spend all her time working with Harry. He did a great job, exuded positive energy, and required little effort from Leigh. It would have been a huge mistake for Leigh to spend her time that way.

The Leadership Matrix kept her from making that mistake by pointing her toward investing her limited leadership capital where it was most needed – working with Brent and Marcy to improve their skills. Should you face a similar peer-to-boss situation, look to the Leadership Matrix for guidance on where to spend your time and energy.

Have you made the leap from peer to boss?  What was your experience? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.  If you want insights into how your behaviors drive your team members’ behaviors and how to lead them more effectively, take our Lead Inside the Box Assessment! It’s free and it’ll give you great insights into how to improve your team’s performance!

– If you’re serious about getting better results out of your team while leading them more efficiently at the same time, grab yourself a copy of Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results. There are plenty of suggestions in there for how you can drive better performance with less effort. CLICK HERE to get your copy.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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Photo: Serious Squirrel by Ed Sweeney