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On the Road to Management

You’ve worked hard and you’re ready to move to the next stage of your career: leadership. Becoming a manager means more money, more responsibility, more opportunity, and more stress and scrutiny. It is a careful balance, so first, make sure you want to take this road, and know it will be heavy with challenges and competition.

If you want to walk the potentially prickly path to management, begin by:

Voicing your aspirations. If you want to be a manager, let the right people in on your plan early, including your boss, your boss’s boss, and your mentor. These people can support you, put you in touch with the right people and opportunities, and help you develop the skills you’ll need to promote. Aspirations make you look ambitious, and more important, some promotions are missed simply because the candidate never expressed a desire to promote. (You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.)
Improving your skillsets. This is where your support system comes in handy. Your boss and your mentor, in particular, can help you assess your current skills to see what you should learn or strengthen. Classes, coaching, professional memberships, and even books can help you here. Additionally, you’ll want to get current on trends in your field, so you’ll bring the most up-to-date knowledge into the promotion process.
Becoming a mentor. If you have a mentor (and as an aspiring manager, you should), you know what benefits they offer, such as coaching and sharing industry knowledge. In becoming a mentor yourself, you can experience the other side of the mentor-mentee relationship, and you can show yourself as a trusted expert who is able to build interpersonal relationships and develop others.
Soliciting feedback. Feedback doesn’t have to be limited to performance reviews, and it doesn’t have to come only from your boss. Ask for feedback from people you trust, such as your boss and select coworkers, even family and friends, to assess your performance strengths and weaknesses. This shows you’re open to constructive criticism, that you’re taking the initiative to improve, and that you value the input of others.

The road to management isn’t always an easy one, but you can make the way smoother with some carefully planned steps at the start of your journey. Which step will you take first?

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