Overcoming the Fear of Getting into Management!

The fear of getting into management for a technical professional surfaces when they reach a certain level of professional expertise in their own field and do not want to become a manager because of their belief that they will suffer on both fronts: lose their technical edge and that they will become dysfunctional as managers as they contemplate their next career movethus weakening their rsum. This concern about losing their technical edge is particularly acute for those who ply in the technology space. The accelerating change in technology concerns them in that they think that if they were away from it, it would quickly make them obsolete.

They also see a plethora of evidence of dysfunctional managers; all they have to do is merely look around their own management circle. Studies after studies reveal that nearly 80% of the managers are dysfunctional in some ways; some downright incompetenteven tyrannical to hide that incompetence. Many wanna-be managers fear, too, that they may end up the same way!

The Fear source!

In my career coaching practice I encounter this often, when individual contributors reach a point of saturation in their professional evolution. Taking on a managerial role is the only option available for professional and career growth. The same fear manifests when a first or second-level manager feels stuck in their role because of their own mindset and is reluctant to advance to higher management positions because their feeling of inadequacy to carry that mantle beyond their current station. The other fear many also carry involves some mystery around higher management roles and how they would fare in those roles.

Why is this fear so common, even among professionals, who are already in management positions? I would like to address some of these notions many harbor, and use this blog to give them a perspective to help navigate through this. I plan to do this by both disabusing some misguided notions and then clarifying how the management process works as one moves up the hierarchy.

So, here is my take: One reason for their apprehension is their belief that managerial role is not scalable. Second factor may be that they have to continue to be as good at their technical skill as when they were an individual contributor as they grow into their management roles with greater responsibilities. The purpose of this blog is also to disabuse this mindset and to provide some guidance on how to think through this process of evolution, as a manager, to make it work for you.

One way to understand how to make a managerial role scalableas you move up the chainis to acknowledge the interplay between technical and management skills. As you grow in your managerial responsibilities you must progressively spend less time doing technical work and more doing management work in its place. This is something that is much harder to most, because they grew up doing hands-on technical work, when given a choice this becomes their default option.

For example, the first level manager typically should consider doing this 50:50. This means that 50% of their time should go into doing technical work (guiding, mentoring, and doing hands-on work only as needed), with the remaining in doing management work (see the four functions of managing below). Of course at lower levels some of the Leading work can involve technical leadership as well. In the section headings below the figures in ( ) show how the typical division of time between management and technical work can be done for managing your responsibilities for a successful outcome. As you move up in management one must learn how to translate their previous hands-on technical skills to conceptualize them without getting involved in their nitty-gritty details. This skill is also part of the development that is required to be able to scale your management abilities.

The first transition (50:50)

When an individual contributor is promoted to the first level manager what stifles their success is their failure to realize that the new role requires a different mindset. Since they were promoted for being excellent at their technical skill that they had mastered as an individual contributor, they assume that doing more of that would make them successful in the new role. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The role of a manager is to carry out the four functions of managing: Leading, Planning, Organizing, and setting up Controls. What most fail to realize is that, although their technical skills are critical in their new leadership role, their function now is to get that done through others who work for them without getting themselves involved in doing that the same way when they were an individual contributor. Unless they can elevate how they apply that skill to get their team to produce collectively and individually (through the application of the four functions mentioned above) they are NOT functioning as a manager.

Not understanding this basic concept can vitiate a managers success, which often results in a manager micromanaging their team and frustrating their team members by imposing their own will on how things must get done. They are not able to move their focus from the How to the What. This is where the seed of dysfunction is sowed early in a managers evolution. Not having a good role model (remember, 80% of the managers suck!) further exacerbates this malady! Those who cannot make the How-What transition get consigned to become micromanagers as its most manifest dysfunction.

Transition to Middle Management (75:25)

Successful first-level and promising managers get a shot at middle management promotions. Typically these roles include Director-and-up levels just short of a VP-level title. In securing such a promotion if you have made a name for yourself as an effective manager, where both your superiors and direct reports see you as that then you have made a good use of the transition from an Individual Contributor to a manager or a senior manager.

Heading a department as a Director (or above) requires additional skills that go beyond what it takes to become an effective first- or second-level manager. These skills include the ability to conceptually understand where technical progress is impeding, and having the ability to guide the team to an effective solution without micromanaging; strong team-building (hiring, mentoring, retaining, performance management, and firing) skills; good alliance-building skills to team-up with cohorts for synergies to develop competitive market advantage; and, finally, increasingly better political, cultural, emotional, and contextual intelligence (PQ, CQ, EQ, and XQ) repertoire. Without this repertoire of Q skills your further growth will be quite limited regardless of however high your IQ may be.

The Second Transition: Jump to the Executive Suite (80:20)

Once you are ready for a VP-level role you can be considered executive material. To make the cut to get into the executive suite the key transition entails moving your focus from your functional area to the broader context of how the business operates and how it creates value in the marketplace. Here you must show sound knowledge of the business ecosystem, your companys place in it, emerging threats from technologies and geographies, how your customers view you as a player in the overall supply-chain that feeds them their needs, ability to see around the corners, and, finally, that illusive executive presence. So, to get into the Executive Suite you must grow your perspective into all these areas to be seen as a candidate ready for this role. Contrary to common misapprehension, executive presence is a learned and developed skill.

The reason I call this the second transition is because this is where you shift your mindset from your functional focus to what really matters in your business.

GM/CEO (90:10)

To be considered a candidate worthy of running a business or a company you must first go through all the previous hoops and demonstrate that you do well in overcoming challenges that faced you, with executive capacity to spare for even bigger challenges. To get on a CEO track one must show their proficiency in not just on career track but also on others. For example, if someone started out as a design engineer (software, hardware, mechanical, systems) then they need to show their success in their future roles as Product Manager, Customer Support/Service Manager, or even in Product Marketing to round out their skill set. Additional stints in overseas assignments, turn-around situations, M&A roles can only help their candidacy in being considered for a GM/CEO role. Yet another sine qua non for a role at this level is the demonstrated ability to run a business and its P&L, with impressive results. Rarely will a candidate be considered for these roles without a well-rounded career and successes in each of their undertakings.

So, now you know how going on a management path can lead you to success by understanding what is required and how to deliver it for you to be considered as the candidate for the right management position.

Good luck!

About Author

Dilip has distinguished himself as LinkedIn’s #1 career coach from among a global pool of over 1,000 peers ever since LinkedIn started ranking them professionally (LinkedIn selected 23 categories of professionals for this ranking and published this ranking from 2006 until 2012). Having worked with over 6,000 clients from all walks of professions and having worked with nearly the entire spectrum of age groups—from high-school graduates about to enter college to those in their 70s, not knowing what to do with their retirement—Dilip has developed a unique approach to bringing meaning to their professional and personal lives. Dilip’s professional success lies in his ability to codify what he has learned in his own varied life (he has changed careers four times and is currently in his fifth) and from those of his clients, and to apply the essence of that learning to each coaching situation. After getting his B.Tech. (Honors) from IIT-Bombay and Master’s in electrical engineering(MSEE) from Stanford University, Dilip worked at various organizations, starting as an individual contributor and then progressing to head an engineering organization of a division of a high-tech company, with $2B in sales, in California’s Silicon Valley. His current interest in coaching resulted from his career experiences spanning nearly four decades, at four very diverse organizations–and industries, including a major conglomerate in India, and from what it takes to re-invent oneself time and again, especially after a lay-off and with constraints that are beyond your control. During the 45-plus years since his graduation, Dilip has reinvented himself time and again to explore new career horizons. When he left the corporate world, as head of engineering of a technology company, he started his own technology consulting business, helping high-tech and biotech companies streamline their product development processes. Dilip’s third career was working as a marketing consultant helping Fortune-500 companies dramatically improve their sales, based on a novel concept. It is during this work that Dilip realized that the greatest challenge most corporations face is available leadership resources and effectiveness; too many followers looking up to rudderless leadership. Dilip then decided to work with corporations helping them understand the leadership process and how to increase leadership effectiveness at every level. Soon afterwards, when the job-market tanked in Silicon Valley in 2001, Dilip changed his career track yet again and decided to work initially with many high-tech refugees, who wanted expert guidance in their reinvention and reemployment. Quickly, Dilip expanded his practice to help professionals from all walks of life. Now in his fifth career, Dilip works with professionals in the Silicon Valley and around the world helping with reinvention to get their dream jobs or vocations. As a career counselor and life coach, Dilip’s focus has been career transitions for professionals at all levels and engaging them in a purposeful pursuit. Working with them, he has developed many groundbreaking approaches to career transition that are now published in five books, his weekly blogs, and hundreds of articles. He has worked with those looking for a change in their careers–re-invention–and jobs at levels ranging from CEOs to hospital orderlies. He has developed numerous seminars and workshops to complement his individual coaching for helping others with making career and life transitions. Dilip’s central theme in his practice is to help clients discover their latent genius and then build a value proposition around it to articulate a strong verbal brand. Throughout this journey, Dilip has come up with many groundbreaking practices such as an Inductive Résumé and the Genius Extraction Tool. Dilip owns two patents, has two publications in the Harvard Business Review and has led a CEO roundtable for Chief Executive on Customer Loyalty. Both Amazon and B&N list numerous reviews on his five books. Dilip is also listed in Who’s Who, has appeared several times on CNN Headline News/Comcast Local Edition, as well as in the San Francisco Chronicle in its career columns. Dilip is a contributing writer to several publications. Dilip is a sought-after speaker at public and private forums on jobs, careers, leadership challenges, and how to be an effective leader.

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