Transitioning from IC to Manager: 3 Lessons That Inspired My First Blog Post

When I shifted from an IC (Individual Contributor) to a Manager, I quickly picked up 3 key lessons that serve me even today.

This week, as I was invited to speak at a career growth panel event organized by my employer, the host asked me to share a significant challenge from my career journey and how I tackled it.

I had many options – navigating tough employee discussions, handling challenging situations, or the delicate balancing act of middle leadership between up and down layers.

However, what came to my mind were 3 immediate lessons I learned when transitioning from an IC (Individual Contributor) to a Manager role.

Today, these very lessons empower me with the extra confidence to publish my first blog. After investing a significant amount of energy over the past 1-2 years building up my confidence, I'm finally stepping forward to write online – a long-standing desire that I've now fulfilled.

Today an IC, tomorrow a Manager

No amount of reading, podcasts, or preparation can truly prepare you. You can raise your awareness, anticipate, and warm up your skills, but it's the practical experience that truly transforms and improves you.

When I became a manager for the first time, I stepped up and inherited my team from my previous manager.

Overnight, I transitioned from being their peer to becoming their manager.

This sudden change brought two immediate challenges:

• I had to discover my identity and management style.

• The reporting dynamic between me and the rest of my team members shifted from peer-to-peer to manager-to-peer

Facing the challenges of discovering my identity as a manager and navigating the shift in dynamics within my team taught me a crucial lesson—nobody has it all figured out. However, your NETWORK becomes your fast track to overcoming Impostor Syndrome. Let me explain.

Starting something new or undergoing a transition often triggers Impostor Syndrome. Despite your academic and professional achievements, the unknowns can make you question yourself.

Here's the truth: titles, experience, levels—beneath it all, we're all human, and we share similar challenges.

If you're stepping into a managerial role, remember that everyone senior to you has experienced their first day as a manager. When facing difficult situations or challenging discussions, know that others around you have been through it too.

Instead of letting Impostor Syndrome overwhelm you, embrace a humble mindset. Prioritize building a network that serves as your support layer—mentors, supporters, and those ready to share their experiences with you and ask for their advise, guidance, perspectives.

I trust any senior professional sees seeking perspectives and embracing a learning-focused approach as a positive demonstration of growth and progression.

Relationships are at the heart of almost everything we do. When in doubt or faced with a challenging situation, trust me that someone else has been through it. Tap into your network, share your ideas, or seek support for that tough presentation, difficult conversation, or decision you're about to make.

I understand that even asking for support might trigger a bit of Impostor Syndrome. Force yourself to overcome it fast.

Not everyone may be available to support you either, or they might lack the skills to act as mentors. Some may have never built their own support network but recognize its value and may be inspired by your courage to follow suit.

In my experience, everyone needs that level of support in their careers - I need it almost daily to be frank - and most people are willing to provide it. Choose wisely, engage with people of different seniorities and backgrounds, and build those diverse partnerships around you.

You don't need to approach 10 people at once either; start with a peer and expand from there. Find your style, find what you need.

Over time, your needs will change, and your experience will grow. There will always be someone going through a similar experience and journey, just one step behind or ahead of you.

Your experience is valuable for those with slightly less experience, while those with a bit more experience have something valuable for you.

Recognizing that Impostor Syndrome is common, especially among high performers starting something new, I've decided to overcome it.

I'm putting myself out here to share what I've learned because, like I leverage my network today to learn and grow, I want to provide the same opportunity for as many people as possible. While my experience might not resonate with everyone, I believe it could be valuable for at least one other person (...when revisiting my blog, I noticed that this final sentence reflects a touch of Imposter Syndrome. Can you feel it? It highlights the inherent tendency to question whether my experience holds value, despite my accomplishments and career progression. I've chosen to keep it, as it perfectly exemplifies the common reactions we have when venturing into new territory).

I'm also eager to connect with people who have a bit more experience than me, knowing they likely have valuable insights for me.

As you become more senior, there's a responsibility to help develop and shape others' professional journeys. This principle applies to corporate professions and any wisdom in life.

Our species has endured because those who lived before us transmitted their experiences, knowledge, and skills to communities (tribes) with slightly less experience.

So, key lesson number 1:

Impostor Syndrome is common, and nobody has it all figured out, regardless of titles or accomplishments. What helps you overcome it faster is learning from your network, which has likely experienced a similar journey, combined with your own practical experimentation and practice.

It's less about you and more about them

When you step into a leadership role, your focus shifts from tangible outputs to more abstract measures.

Yes, you track KPIs and align with business goals, but the palpable results become slightly less prominent. If your role feels too structured, offering more clarity than needed, it might mean you're not being challenged enough for your experience and seniority.

My rule: maintain the right level of excitement, balancing on the edge of what you can handle—neither too comfortable nor too edgy. This prevents boredom or stagnation, both of which lead to long-term motivation loss.

Embracing ambiguity, navigating chaos, and restoring clarity for your team become the norm. As I progress in my managerial career, I realize that middle management acts as a bridge—translating between an ambiguous upper leadership layer and a tangible, junior team layer, with all sort of seniorities in between those two layers. This often involves dealing with a large number of stakeholders across teams.

Your role shifts from personal achievements to building and investing in the community around you. Advancement means less focus on tangible work for yourself and more on fostering relationships and contributing to the collective and scalable knowledge.

Key lesson number 2:

It all boils down to relationships—shaping the community around you while aligning with business goals. In my experience, it's less about yourself and more about them.

The same principle applies to the online presence. My goal is not to make it about myself but to invest in those who choose to be part of my journey. For people, 'valuable' translates to finding solutions for their own 'pain.' People feel inspired when they receive something that holds value for them, something that revolves around their needs and concerns. When it's about them.

Excel at the bench, not necessarily as a field expert

Being a top performer in your team doesn't guarantee success in leading it. Success doesn't necessarily hinge on being an all-knowing expert.

Before I took on a leadership role, I was a senior engineer within the team. While I don't believe anyone can know everything, I was proficient in my role. I confidently made technical decisions, supported my team, solved problems, prioritized customer experience, and had a deep understanding of our team's technical aspects.

I used to believe that this knowledge would ensure success. It did give me confidence when handling challenging technical situations, but over time, I learned it's not essential to know everything.

In fact, it's something you naturally lose with experience.

You must learn to let go of detailed knowledge to make space for more strategic considerations.

Firstly, being the person who knows it all can lead to a tendency to swiftly tackle problems yourself instead of investing in mentoring your team. Shifting from a do-er to a mentor requires finesse. Even if someone else might take longer or not reach your level of proficiency, guide them to achieve that level rather than doing it for them. Otherwise you are not contributing to their progress.

Over the years, I've led teams and projects without prior hands-on experience.

It can be a bit uncomfortable, requiring the right tools, questions, and a learning mindset to succeed. However, you don't need to know everything. Knowing when to learn from experienced team members and distilling the essence of technical discussions is crucial, but you don't need to know it all. And you need to become comftable with the fact that you won't know it all. How? Everyday practice on your mindset.

As a manager, if you're entirely focused on knowing every tactile aspect, it suggests a failure to make the mental shift from an individual contributor to a leadership role. It means you're not leveraging your skills, experience, and leadership tools to engage with the higher-level elements of the business.

Striving to know everything can impede your progress and reduce efficiency. Embrace navigating through ambiguity, interacting with individuals more skilled than yourself, and leveraging your unique experiences and skills that bring value to the table.

Key lesson number 3:

Most coaches aren't necessarily the best players —they don't know everything, and they don't need to. Importantly, they don't pretend to have all the answers either. It's about finding a delicate balance between humility, active listening, asking pertinent questions, and utilizing the right tools and skills to extract essential information needed for managerial decisions and leadership.

Just as in my daily role, my experiences aren't absolute benchmarks, and I don't claim to know it all. However, I acknowledge that they are unique to my personal journey and become valuable when applied in the appropriate context.

Similar to not being a native English speaker yet succeeding in my job using this language, why should I refrain from sharing my learning with the community simply because I don't possess absolute knowledge about leadership?! Plus I learnt that Impostor Syndrome is something common when starting something new and nobody has it all figure out, no?!

That's it for this note, I hope you enjoyed it.

Cheers,

Luciana