Preparing for the leadership role

- While a new promotion can be very exciting, a new role can also be a daunting challenge. You're no longer an individual contributor, you now lead a team of individual contributors. You were promoted because you exceeded expectations in your individual contributor role. And not necessarily because you have the experience or a strong skillset as a leader. You're no longer evaluated on your individual performance, you're now evaluated on your team's performance. It's a big change. Here are some tips on how to prepare for your new leadership role. Set up time with your manager to understand your responsibilities. It is important to know what your management will be holding you accountable for so that you can focus on the right things. When I was promoted to lead a team, I spent a lot of hours in the first weeks reviewing my team's code. I was overwhelmed and did not know how to accommodate all the work that I thought I had to do as a manager. My manager saw me stressed and called for a meeting, when I told her that a significant amount of my time was being on reviewing code, she was surprised because she did not expect me to review the code as part of my new job. I just assumed that I had to review everybody's work before it was sent to the quality assurance team. I wanted my team's work to be perfect. My manager helped me understand that I needed to let go and learn to trust my team to be effective. Also, you need to learn how to delegate. Your responsibilities change as a manager and if you don't know how to delegate, you will not be able to find time to lead your team effectively. Delegating can be hard, especially if you're used to doing everything yourself. It was very hard for me as a new manager. I was used to doing things a certain way and thought that my way was the best. I had to learn to let go, have trust in the ability of my team and acknowledge that a task can be done multiple ways and all those ways can be correct. And lastly, accept help from your manager or a professional coach to work on delegation skills. Most companies offer trainings for new managers to ramp them up on management policies and responsibilities, so make sure you sign up for these trainings, and be kind to yourself. You're running a marathon not a sprint. Don't be hard on yourself even if you don't have answers to all questions, or if you can't fix a situation right away. Know that leaders don't necessarily have all the answers. But they have the confidence to pull in the right team members to find those answers. Give yourself time to grow into the role and ask for help when you need it. To be a successful leader you need to be authentic, positive and continuously learning. And most importantly, you need to be confident.