What to do when you think leadership is not for you
Well, this is something new, isn’t it? Not even 6 months in the new role and you already feel like you just don’t belong here.
Let me help you out from the start: there’s nothing wrong with you!
Transitioning to a new role is hard, I know – I have experienced this more times than I care to remember. At the start, you get all these good feelings about the new role, about the people, what you will be doing, and what you can showcase. Then something snaps and you feel like this is not right – that you should not be there. Every time I change in my role I go through this, and I can’t stop it… well, not at first. Luckily for you, I’m here to talk a bit about this topic and send you on your merry way without feeling like you’re the biggest loser in history.
Today we will be going over Impostor Syndrome, and here are the main points:
- Welcome to the CLUB
- Get a Grip
- Find the right support
- Stay focused on the early impact
- Keep yourself grounded
Welcome to the CLUB
Yes, you made it to our secret club!
It’s a special place with people all over the world who are also (more or less) exactly where you are right now. You feel you don’t belong in leadership, that this is too much for you, and what on Earth were you even thinking when you took this job.
Well, listen: you are not that special. You are just like the rest of us and you have a very normal reaction. At first, everyone feels like an actor playing a manager because there’s this big change going on, the honeymoon phase is over, and stuff is getting real. Things are not really going as you expected them to go, people are not reacting the way you wanted them to, and the entire thing is going in the exact opposite direction.
It’s fine, really! Change – and especially this one – isn’t something you will be able to manage in a few days. It takes time for you to get familiar with everything, to understand how to react, and to learn all the things that now appear to be out of your grasp. I remember something a former colleague told me when I started out in leadership: you will feel like everything is fine today, and tomorrow this big wave will come and hit you and everything will be chaos. In essence, you just need to learn how to ride the wave and make sure you don’t drown.
Making this change is also a transition from doing the work yourself to leading the work. I spoke about this here, if you want to check it out: Delegating Tasks: Unlearn Individual Contributor Habits. In reality, you need a bit of time to adjust to the new “way of working,” and you need to learn how to introduce new habits that help you not feel like an underachiever.
There’s also another thing you must consider: when you feel like something is too much for you or your current capabilities, this means you care. When you care, there’s room for improvement. You see, it’s not about what you can do right now, it’s about what you want to learn based on how you feel today. Everything is difficult until it’s not!
Get a GRIP
Listen, self-pity is not something people really want to see! People have enough issues in their lives. Trust me when I say this: they don’t need your issues as well. So, get a grip and accept what is going on: a change. And with any change, things don’t just happen overnight or without work. You need to acknowledge the fact that your capabilities now are not where you might want them to be, so you have to pivot. It’s perfectly normal, and people will not expect miracles from you. Remember: you’re a first-time manager! There’s just no way for you to know absolutely everything about the job since you’ve never done this before.
Leadership is a long road, a hard road, but a very rewarding road. To walk on it requires patience, strength, and practice. A common mistake new managers make is to not use the “I don’t know, but I’ll find out” phrase. They just jump headfirst into whatever issue is presented and go about it the wrong way. When you don’t know something, just say you don’t. Do your homework, check out the issue, find the answers, and then talk.
There’s also the aspect of realistic expectations. The first article I published here talked about this in detail: The First-Time Manager Starter Pack: Days 1–30. You see, a lot of first-time managers do not have realistic expectations about what they can do, so they start these crazy team overhauls that have a severe impact on everything. Let’s say you got the role and the team you’re in charge of is not doing a good job performance-wise. You won’t and can’t change them in 2–3 weeks, I guarantee it. So why set up these unrealistic expectations for yourself about bringing the performance up when you barely understand what is going on?
Find the right support
It’s a human (and very normal) reaction to feel overwhelmed, and as humans, we thrive on the social aspect. This means you can always find at least one other person who can help you – all you need to do is look and ask. Finding the right support group is essential. In my first 2 years as a people manager, I had peers and mentors all over the place: some for data, some for people, some for advice, some to complain about things, etc. It’s the normal thing to do, the human thing to do. You can learn a lot of things from other leads: different ways of working (and maybe borrow some of them), other styles of management (and maybe cherry-pick), communication, team engagement, how to talk or how not to talk when you have a team meeting or a connect with your boss. Similarly, a coach or mentor is a great way of opening up to more experienced people. From them, you can better understand what is going on, you can learn things faster than you would by yourself, and you can talk about pain areas. In the end, it’s up to you to find the right people for your support group.
Whatever you go with (mentor, peer, coach, etc.), use the time you have with these people to your benefit. You can vent about whatever things are happening without the worry that you are talking to your boss or team, ask about practical shortcuts, and ask about what they are usually doing and try them out. The idea is to use the time in a smart way: learn something new with each chat. Don’t just complain about things – also ask for advice.
Don’t feel embarrassed! There’s no shame in asking for help, and you will not look weak. Some people just don’t let go of their pride and refuse to ask for help. They build these huge walls around them and just stay there. In isolation, nothing will improve because you only have what you take with you, so if there’s not much there… how can it get better?
Stay focused on the early impact
To avoid the feeling of “I’m not useful,” you need to always think about the early impact. To achieve this, just pick 1–2 smaller things from your team and work on those; see if you can make them better. Help them with whatever you can right now; don’t worry about bigger things you can’t do anything about for the moment. Focus on the things you can change, even if they are small things and you might think they don’t really matter, but trust me, they do!
If you focus on these small things with early impact, you also build confidence two ways: for yourself (since you are actually doing something) and for your team (as they will look at you with different eyes and a higher level of trust in your capabilities). And track them: keep them in a notebook or a to-do list… someplace you can look at them and see with your own eyes what they look like. It’s one thing to have them in your mind and another thing to actually see them “on paper.”
Keep yourself grounded
Here’s my personal checklist of things to help me stay grounded when I need to. Try it out and see if it helps you as well:
- Write all the tasks down (I use paper – YES, I know… it’s just something I like to do) and each time one of them is done, draw a line across it. It’s a satisfying way of removing the task from my to-do list.
- Each Monday morning, before the day starts, look back at the previous week and think about the things that went well and what you learned from them. I do this specifically on Monday because I like to remove any weekend work thinking (weekends are for personal time and relaxation, not for work).
- My Feedback Folder: Keep a dedicated folder with all the great feedback, appreciation, results of your projects, etc. Each time I feel a bit down, I go over it and remind myself that while sometimes things don’t go as planned, I can still do great things.
- This one took many years of practice, but don’t look at mistakes as “the end of the world,” but more as “what can I learn from this?” A little change in perception can go a long way sometimes.
Well folks, this was it for Impostor Syndrome. Keep in mind you are fine, this is normal, and give yourself enough time to learn and get better. Everything is difficult until it isn’t.
Stay safe, healthy, and happy!