Before you accept your first management or leadership role, look in the mirror
What first-time managers should ask themselves before saying yes
So you want to be in a management role, huh?
“How hard can it be?” you ask yourself shortly after shaking your manager’s hand in acceptance of your new role.
Your hard work over the years has finally paid off. You have been promoted, and “team leader” definitely seems like the next logical step in your career. You now sport a shiny new title, of which your loved ones will no doubt be proud. If you’re lucky, you got a slight bump in your salary, too (but I doubt it).
On your way home that evening, you swing by your local bookstore and load up on a bunch of leadership books. The electronic versions of these books are much cheaper, and many resources are free online, but you like how the physical copies look on a shelf. You’ll probably never read them anyway — and you know it — but that doesn’t matter. They will be there for “reference,” you tell yourself, conveniently choosing to forget Google or ChatGPT exists. You’re feeling good right now.
You show up at work the next day only to find your world has turned completely upside down. You are now the point person for your project, which means you’re responsible for meticulously following every one of the company’s obscure process mandates. If you’re lucky, all the documents of the project up to this point have been properly written, reviewed, and approved. More likely, a few are missing, and your friendly process police will be more than happy to remind you of that.
You notice a lot more emails in your inbox, all tagged “Extremely Urgent” — you know, the ones with the red exclamation points next to their subject lines. Soon, you find yourself spending a solid five hours of your day in meetings. Every day. Your universe begins to revolve around chasing people for information and continuously putting together status updates. You are now responsible for everything, and yet no one seems to be accountable to you.
If this sounds like a bad dream, then you should not be a manager. If, on the other hand, you thrive on sustained pressure, find chaos and uncertainty stimulating, and love to get noticed in an organization, then there is no better professional rite of passage than being a manager. This position allows you to demonstrate your leadership and communication skills, as well as your ability to handle pressure and manage risk. I can’t think of a better way to announce yourself to senior and executive management.
You’re either wired to be a manager, or you’re not. It’s as simple as that. Can anyone do it? Sure, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be good at it. I can buy some highly rated boots, crampons, and rope from an outdoor store, but that doesn’t make me a mountaineer. Can I learn how to be one? Definitely. However, if I am not cut out for the physical rigor of mountain climbing, or if I get dizzy from heights, then engaging in this activity will be very uncomfortable for me. It’ll be against my DNA, and I’ll never be good at it.
Do not, under any circumstances, do something you don’t feel you can excel at. You’ll only be setting yourself up for failure. Or unhappiness. Or both. It will bring you down mentally, emotionally, and physically, and it will impact the quality of your life. You deserve better.
Before you let the allure of a more glamorous job title or higher salary cloud your judgment, take a moment to look in the mirror. Take a day or three if you have to before accepting that new promotion. Your manager can wait. It’s time for you to do some soul-searching.
Remove the job title and the salary from the equation. These might seem attractive in the beginning, but a few months from now, you won’t care about them one bit.
Ask yourself if being a manager is what you’ve always wanted to do, or if this job will take you one step closer toward becoming the person you want to be. If the answer is yes, and if you feel ready for the challenge and are willing to endure the trial by fire that it entails, then embrace this opportunity with open arms.
If you don’t feel this is the right role for you, then figure out a polite and diplomatic way to decline the generous offer. Explain why in very personal terms. No one wants to see you fail, least of all your manager. He or she will understand, assuming your approach, your tone, and your reasons all come across as genuine. If your manager doesn’t understand, start updating your resume. You don’t want to work for this type of company anyway.
I never once thought I wanted to be a manager when I was growing up. I’m not sure anyone else has either. Ever. In the whole world. What I have always known is that I would someday run my own company. From an early age, I have also been interested in building things. As a child, I would obsessively collect anything I could lay my hands on — scrap metal, wires, batteries, corks, empty plastic casings of broken pens, torn pieces of aluminum foil. You name it. I was the most eager scavenger the world has ever known. I dumped everything in a huge box, and I spent my spare time figuring out what I could make with the stuff I had. I learned about resource constraints very early on.
Growing up, I was always the one organizing activities with my friends — where and when to play soccer, whom to coax so we had enough players, who was responsible for bringing a ball, and who had the ball pump last. We had all chipped in to buy a soccer ball (my idea), and the ownership of and responsibility for the ball was shared by everyone involved on a rotating basis (also my idea). Then, one day, our cherished ball was punctured, which meant it had to be inflated multiple times during the course of a game. In came the communal pump. It took me a lot of planning, discipline, commitment, and effort to make sure the ball, the pump, and all the players in the neighborhood showed up for the game on time. We played every Sunday morning at 7:00, but I was always the first one up at 5:00. No short order for a 9-year-old.
As a teenager, I was in charge of choosing the restaurants where we’d eat and which movies we’d see when planning afternoons out with that very same group of friends. I was the one chasing people for any money owed, and I made sure everyone paid their fair share.
Clearly, I was cut out to be a team leader, even if I didn’t know it then. When my first professional opportunity to manage a team came about, I took a week to think about it. I looked long and hard in the mirror, and I said, “Yes.”
After all, management was in my DNA.
Key Points
Being promoted into management often feels rewarding at first, but the day-to-day reality is far more demanding than most people expect.
New management roles come with full accountability and limited authority, especially early on.
Thriving in management requires comfort with pressure, ambiguity, visibility, and constant decision-making.
Accepting a management role you are not suited for can lead to stress, unhappiness, and long-term career damage.
Before accepting a promotion, it is important to separate the appeal of the title and salary from the reality of the work itself.