You’ve Just Appointed a First-Time Leader to Your IT Team!

Going from ‘doing stuff’ to ‘managing people’ is the most challenging transformation in anyone's career. More so for a high performing technical professional who’s spent their working life being the best they can be technically.

It’s where many fail, regret the move, and leave ... distressed, demoralised and distraught, desperately wishing there was a way back.

But you can’t afford for them to fail. Because if they do... it’s a nightmare. For them, for their team, for the organisation and, just as importantly, for you.

The most important job you have as a leader of leaders, once you’ve appointed a technical person into their first leadership role, is to get them successfully across the ‘doing to leading chasm.

Why is it so difficult to cross the chasm?

Because the things that made them successful in their technical role are not the things that will make them successful as a leader. They now have to:

1. Lead their peers - instead of drinking, or gaming, with them
2. Learn to delegate - instead of thinking “I need it done properly I’ll do it myself”
3. Manage the priorities of others - instead of the priorities on their task list
4. Cope as the struggling newbie leader - instead of the confident technical expert

While it’s critical you commit to make sure they succeed, you already have far too much on your plate: Projects, direct reports, KPIs, day to day operational accountability, and an endless stream of demands on your time.

As such it’s highly likely YOU DON’T HAVE TIME TO BOTH GET THEM UP TO SPEED, AND MANAGE THEM YOURSELF.

For over a decade I took full IT responsibility for a billion-dollar business (Bidfood NZ). I’ve had great managers and awful ones. I’ve seen the difference a great manager and leader can make. I’ve seen the carnage and derailed careers, of technical experts trying and failing to make the transition to successful leaders. I’ve seen and experienced the massive impact of failed direct reports.

I’ve felt like a deer in the headlights many times in my 30+ year career.

Wondering: “Could I do it?” “Would I be found out?” I know what it’s like, and how to turn it around and make it work. To learn, evolve and achieve.

My passion now is to help new leaders and managers make the toughest transition in their careers - the transition from doing stuff to leading and managing people, and building successful teams.

As a leader who's just promoted, or hired, someone from a technical role into their first leadership role, you may be asking yourself:

1. How much time will I have to spend training and supporting (‘nannying’?) them?

Leaders of leaders, like you, have significant and unrelenting pressure on them to perform and deliver:

1. Too many responsibilities and too much to do.
2. Endless demands on your time, energy and focus, that can pile on the stress, uncertainty and feelings of overwhelm.
3. Pressures to deliver on your KPIs, and the projects you’ve committed to deliver, which need your attention or risk getting behind.

What if you didn’t have to do it all yourself? What if you could just do the bits you want to with bringing on your new leader?

2. What if my new leader (previously my best technical expert) doesn't make it and leaves. Then what?

It happens more often than you think. They either leave or you have to manage them out.

For you, that’s the curtain-raiser, and the drama is just starting.

You’ve just lost your best technical expert. You have a leaderless team and now have to go through the expensive, time consuming, and risky business of finding a replacement … and who’s going to lead the team until you find a replacement?

What if there was a way to get an early warning of the water pipe about to burst, a chance to fix the problem before it does, and a way to minimise the fallout if it’s not fixable?

3. Have I created the right environment that allows them to thrive?

How did the best leaders you’ve worked for unleash your best?

Were you engaged? Did you go from strength to strength, build great teams and deliver the results you, your boss, and the organisation wanted and needed?

What if you could get them help, but not drain your time?

4. Do I know how they’re really doing … and really feeling?

How would you know?

What if they appear like all is good and they’re in control, but instead they’re like a tightrope walker who desperately needs a balancing bar and a safety net:

1. Struggling with doubt, and feeling overwhelmed and unsupported.
2. ​Feeling the pressure to perform.
3. ​Struggling to manage and motivate their team effectively.

​What if there was a way to add a balancing bar and safety net for them?

5. Have I set them up for success?

The early-stage steps your new manager and leader takes are a bit like crossing a minefield. How can you get them across safely when you don't have time to help them avoid the landmines?

Landmines like:

1. Are they delegating
2. Are they feeling like they need to know it all
3. Are they equipped to manage a remote team?

What if there was an easy way to give them a metal detector and someone to help them identify and defuse the mines? So they can get moving quickly and confidently like a poised leopard, not a nervous meerkat.

I’ve been there. Not enough hours in the day. Torn between properly supporting your new 1st time leader and attending to all your other priorities. It’s a tough place.

The good news is you don’t have to do the Atlas thing and take it all on your shoulders.

I specialise in owning this problem.

1. Help you guide your 1st time leaders through this tumultuous time.
2. Help them quickly and easily level-up their capability and confidence.
3. Provide them with an on-tap, experienced, successful, and objective advisor, coach, and mentor.
   

Then let's talk!