#16 - Leading is a Difficult Peer-to-Leader Transition

 Stepping into leadership over people who used to be your peers is one of the most challenging transitions you'll face. The relationships change, expectations shift, and suddenly the conversations become harder.

In this episode, I share practical strategies to help you earn respect without changing who you are, set healthy boundaries, navigate awkward situations, and lead with confidence instead of trying to be liked.

If you've recently been promoted or you're preparing to take the next step in your leadership journey, this episode will give you practical tools you can apply immediately.

Transcript

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So a difficult thing for new and emerging leaders is breaking free from the peer aspect of your position. So you've obviously been hired into a role as a leader b based off the skill set that you've shown out on the the office space or the team or the course. In my situation on a golf course, managing the team in small teams and things like that and being a part of the camaraderie, all these kinds of things, right? The hardest thing is going from that to a leader and leading your former peers. Very difficult thing to do. And people underestimate this because yesterday they were technically your mates, and today you're the leader. So you've gone from working with them, being a part of the band to always being a part of the jokes and funniness and all that kind of stuff. And you've got to then have some sort of separation essentially overnight. And I know for my point of view, when we do hire someone from the team into a management role, I see them struggle with that. And it is hard, it's very difficult because we're going to be viewed differently. People are funny about that. I don't know why, but people get funny about you going into a management role, and they will make jokes and things like that. Oh, look at you, you've just gone into the role, and you're going to tell us what to do, and all this kind of stuff. And ultimately, the advice that I give for someone in that setting is think about long-term here. Think about long-term in your career. And will you let this blip in your career, this conversation that you're having about people making jokes about you and things like that, will you allow that to determine the path that you take, or will you stay focused on the long-term goal of you becoming that senior person? So for me, it's a quite simple thing to do. And I think it's really important to still have the camaraderie. I'm not saying completely eliminate it, but find a balance. And the relationship changes whether you want it to or not. That's just a reality of the role, and you've got to get used to that. And people will test your boundaries as well once you're promoted. So people will try and push you a little bit, see what they can get away with, and but you've got to have certain difficult personalities to deal with as well, which is not going to make it easy. And you will be under the pump a little bit because you're going to be essentially getting assessed by your team and seeing what you can put up with and how you handle it as well. So one thing that I would say not to do is try and keep everybody happy. Don't need to go in all guns blazing, but don't try and keep everybody happy and be that guy, I'll sort you out, I'll help you out, don't worry. Don't you don't want to go down that path because you're going to get yourself stuck eventually, and people will continuously take advantage of you. And if something does go wrong and they do make a genuine mistake, then they will just think, oh, Brendan, he won't do anything because he's a part of the boys and this kind of stuff. You've got to have boundaries where you're happy to have a chat, happy to still hang out outside of work hours if needed. But when you're in work, it's business time. That's how it should be. It's important to understand too that accountability feels different when it's someone you know well. Very hard to give someone accountability on a certain task that they're buggered up when they know you well because you don't want to ruin the friendship, right? But I think for me personally, the thing that I did early on was have hard conversations with the people that I know that I'm gonna have to tell what to do, but also that I'm happy to have a beer with. And honesty and communication is the only thing that's gonna get you through this because if you just say to them, hey, look, I'm in this new role now, I'm gonna have to tell you one day something that you're not happy to hear, but that's just a part of the job, no hard feelings, it's a part of the role, and it's a business conversation only, okay? So lay it all out on the groundwork straight away, and people will actually respect you more for that, and automatically it takes the weight off your shoulder because you've already got that communication piece out there to the team. So you've just got to be consistent. So rocking up in the same mood every day, you deliver on the standards that you're trying to project to the team as well, lead by action, and things will happen naturally for you, and you'll naturally become popular, but don't chase popularity because your team watches what you do more than what you say, so your actions are really important in this setting. And some people won't like the change, and that's okay, but that's their problem. As long as you're treating that with respect and you're having conversations with genuine respect for people, that's up to them how they react. That's not your task to worry about how someone reacts. That's up to them. But your job is to guide them in the right direction. And finally, I think focusing on getting respect from your team. Don't worry about the approval setting. As I said, some people you're never going to be able to get approval from. But if you have a level of respect there, that's the key part. So respect will always remain the same, and it's all due to the way that you work and the way that you carry yourself every day.