In my first manager role, I got promoted to manage a team that included someone who used to be my peer.
And they never accepted me as their manager.
I had no idea what I was doing. There’s no manual for how to rebuild trust when you were suddenly on different sides of the hierarchy. No playbook for managing someone who’s decided you’re not qualified to lead them.
I was trying to figure out how to actually lead while simultaneously navigating a relationship that had fundamentally shifted overnight — and I had zero resources to help me.
Here’s what I realized: senior leaders get coaching. And the vast majority of leaders — the ones actually managing people day-to-day — are left to figure it out on their own.
Then we wonder why engagement tanks. Why people quit over a bad manager. Why productivity stalls.
The irony is this: the leaders with the most direct impact on your team’s engagement and retention are the ones with the least access to resources.
They’re managing their first team, navigating conflict they’ve never seen before, trying to build credibility with people who knew them as peers — and nobody’s invested in helping them do it well.
So they wing it. They learn through trial and error. And somewhere, someone quits because they didn’t have the framework to handle a conversation that mattered or know how to enable a team to perform at their best.
In some cases, we may connect with a mentor or have a good boss who helps us navigate these initial challenging waters.
But we’re leaving this all up to chance.
Let’s not leave the success of entry and mid-career leaders up to chance. Let’s be more intentional.