Transitions: Managing Others to Managing Managers

Climbing Higher on the Leadership Ladder: Transitioning from Managing Others to Managing Managers

Moving up to the second rung of the leadership ladder involves a crucial change in focus as you shift from managing others to managing managers.

This transition requires you to let go of direct oversight of individual contributors and embrace the challenge of leading other leaders, each responsible for their own teams and objectives.

If you don't shift your leadership approach at this point, you will over-stretch yourself and could burn-out. You would also limit the scale of role you can undertake in the organisation.

As you step into this role, your emphasis now needs to fully shift from achieving results yourself to creating the right conditions for your managers to succeed.

This approach is vital for cultivating a thriving leadership culture within your organisation, driving productivity in a sustainable manner. 

Shifting Skills, Time Allocation, and Values:

As you transition into managing managers, consider these key adjustments:

1. Skill Development: While your previous focus may have been on operational skills, you now need to enhance your strategic thinking and leadership competencies. Developing your ability to mentor and coach other leaders is essential to ensure they have the tools to guide their teams effectively.

2. Time Allocation: Reassess how you allocate your time. Your focus will shift from managing tasks directly to enabling others to do so. Prioritise activities such as providing support to your managers, facilitating collaboration between teams, and driving alignment with larger organisational goals.

3. Values Alignment: Your values should now reflect a commitment to understanding and fostering the conditions that enable your managers and their teams to thrive. This means prioritising collaboration, trust, and collective responsibility.

Key Elements of Transitioning to Managing Managers:

1. Building Trust and Empowerment: Foster a culture where trust is paramount. Empower your managers to make decisions, encouraging autonomy while providing the necessary support for their success.

2. Developing Leadership Talent: Identify and nurture potential leaders within your teams. Invest time in coaching and providing opportunities for growth, ensuring that your managers can develop their skills and take on greater responsibility.

3. Creating a Vision: Articulate a clear and inspiring vision for your management team. Help them understand how their teams contribute to broader organisational goals, driving alignment towards a common purpose.

4. Effective Communication: Enhance your communication skills to facilitate open dialogue not only within your management team but across the organisation. Regularly check in with your managers to provide updates and gather feedback.

5. Encouraging Collaboration Across Teams: Promote collaboration among different teams led by your managers. Encourage them to share best practices and create a culture of learning and support, fostering a sense of community.

6. Performance Management: Shift your focus from individual performance to overseeing team performance. Implement metrics and regular check-ins to support accountability while celebrating collective achievements.

7. Recognising and Valuing Contributions: Just as with individual contributors, acknowledge and celebrate the accomplishments of your managers. Make sure you are demonstrating you value how they lead their teams, not just their team's results. Recognition fosters motivation and drives commitment within your management team.

8. Managing Upwards and Across: Cultivate relationships with senior leaders and other departments to ensure that your managers’ needs are met. Advocate for resources and support by effectively communicating the challenges and successes of your teams.

9. Fostering Continuous Learning: Create an environment that encourages ongoing development. Offer training opportunities, encourage attendance at workshops, and promote a culture of feedback where learning is seen as a continuous journey.

10. On-the-Job Coaching: Providing coaching to your managers in their leadership approach is critical. While many organisations offer training for front-line leaders, the true embedding of these skills occurs through on-the-job coaching. Your role as a coach will help leaders apply what they learn about managing others in real situations, reinforcing effective leadership practices.

Pitfalls of a Poor Transition:

Failing to adapt can lead to:

1. Micromanagement: A failure to trust your managers can result in micromanagement, where you focus on the tasks that your teams should be undertaking rather than creating the conditions for their success and developing their leadership skills. This approach not only stifles their growth but also creates a culture where your managers undertake the tasks of more junior employees. Such unproductive practices cast a wide shadow across your part of the organisation, encouraging similar micromanagement behaviours within their teams. Micro-management at this level and above takes a sledgehammer to organisational productivity.

2. Unclear Roles: If you don’t clearly define the roles and responsibilities of your managers, it can lead to confusion, conflicting priorities, and inefficiencies.

3. Lack of Accountability: Avoiding difficult conversations about performance or expectations, especially around their leadership approach, can lead to a lack of accountability among your managers, ultimately affecting overall results.

4. Failure to Collaborate: Neglecting to foster collaboration across teams can create silos within the organisation, hampering communication and shared learning. What ever you do, don't create an environment of internal competition, where they work against each other rather than your real competitors in the market.

Conclusion:

Leadership changes as you become more senior.

Transitioning from managing others to managing managers requires essential changes in your skills, time allocation, and values:

• Build trust and empower your managers to make decisions while providing them the support they need to succeed.
• Develop leadership skills focused on mentoring and coaching, ensuring that your managers grow into effective leaders themselves.
• Reallocate your time to enable collaborative efforts and align your management team with organisational goals.
• Emphasise your commitment to understanding and creating the right conditions for success within your management team
• Recognise and celebrate contributions from your managers (especially around how they are leading their teams). This is to reinforce motivation and commitment, creating a more engaged leadership culture.

Neglecting these adjustments can limit your effectiveness as a leader and hinder your ability to advance to higher levels of leadership, where these competencies become increasingly vital.

If you continue as you did when you were a first line manager, you are likely to burn-out.

By making these changes now, you will develop a more sustainable approach to leadership. You won't limit yourself on the scope and scale of role you can undertake. Which will prepare your for the challenges of even more senior leadership roles in the future.