You have been the company hero, the person everyone comes to when they want to complain about the boss. You listen to their woes, offer advice and  accept their gratitude for the wisdom you have dispensed. Sitting at your desk,  feet stretched up on the desk, you feel expansive. Work is easy. It’s a good life. You think to yourself “These people love me. I guess it’s only natural. I am after all a natural leader. It’s just a question of time before the company is going to give me the unit manager’s job”.

The next day, the CEO calls you over and tells you you have the unit manager’s job…

It’s Monday morning. You are the new manager and it’s time for you to take your new office, the higher salary, the company car. You can’t help noticing some envious looks cast in your direction. You start delegating tasks – isn’t this what managers are supposed to do? The people you have been working with have a new look on their faces when they speak to you. “More respectful, as they should be” you say to yourself..

Three weeks have passed. You begin to get some strange vibes. You notice that some things are not going the way you hoped for. This is quite different from what you had imagined and you are suddenly no longer sure of yourself.

You are about to discover the top 3 challenges of the new manager.

1- You are not the hero anymore, someone else is

Maybe no one told you this before but every work group’s favorite lunch topic is bitching about the boss. What your staff now think about you is more about the lunch-time gossip and less about your capabilities. When you see people gossiping and whispering down the hall, you can bet they are talking about you.

This is also when you have this irresistible urge to get people to like you. You worry about this, about why our colleagues are not being as open as before.

Relax! This is part of the territory of the new manager. Now you know why you are paid more!

2- You are no longer that smart – but everyone else is

You can’t take credit for anything anymore! Your boss thinks your people get the credit, your team thinks it’s your boss who makes the difference. Suddenly, a mind shift has taken place. You are the same guy that ruled these corridors  a few weeks ago, but now everyone thinks they know more than you. You can see it in their eyes.

You feel redundant –  like someone preventing an organization chart from getting flatter. You recall the conversation about star employees who start to fail when they become managers.

You will learn to understand that who you were before doesn’t count anymore. You have to earn your credibility as a manager from scratch. It’s not going to be easy and it’s not going to be quick.  It is easy to build popularity but much harder to build respect.

3- You can’t blame the company anymore – you are the company!

New managers have an almost irresistible urge to neutralize the alienation (from former colleagues) factor by trying to go back to being part of the gang. One common way is to blame head office or senior management and to become the advocate who will try to inform top management about the error of their ways. Don’t even think about this. Trying to prove that you are different from “the management” is a surefire way to lose credibility and trust.