Boldly, and perhaps coldly, if you are in management, and sincerely don’t like it, we believe you should get out.
Remember the old joke about the man who goes to the doctor and says: “Doctor, every time I bend down my back hurts”. And the Doctor says “then don’t bend down”. Funny in a pathetic sort of way, but like all humor, it holds a grain of truth.
As a manager, if you continue to stay in your role, and you truly don’t like it, then you are a dis-service to your staff, your company and its customers. In our experience working with managers and executives across the country, “a sustained spirit-less role” is in direct line of sight with under performance. Making this decision may be a hard one, but it’s the best decision for you and the company.
If on the other hand, you are promoted and were not ready nor were you intending to be in management – a situation many find themselves in today, particularly in the clinical and technical areas – that is a different story.
If you suddenly find yourself in a management role, someone in the organization believed that you could do the job and that you were the right person for the position. While we hear people in this role sometimes describe themselves as “lucky”, luck often has little to do with it. Your past performance, how you positioned yourself in the organization, and your skills caught someone’s attention and they chose you.
So now what? Our advice is to accept the confidence others have in you and give it your best effort to learn and acclimate to the role, as it is entirely different than a non-management role. Work to accelerate your learning and decreasing the time to performance breakeven. (The performance breakeven point is where you begin to add value to the organizations through your new role.)
Like all new skills, it takes time to learn them, and we will make mistakes along the way. But before you say that management is not for you, make a sincere and committed effort to succeed, and understand that it is entirely a different landscape then what you were used to in your prior role. Change and growth require learning and adjustment; that is often not easy or comfortable and many quit at this point.
Our Quick Tips this week will present ideas on how to recalibrate more quickly in your new management role and decrease the time to performance breakeven.
Copyright 2011 Kubica and LaForest
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