About 2.5 years ago, in my previous job in a big organization, I became a group manager for the first time. I received the same group in which I had been as a team leader. I started there as a full-stack developer, progressed, and became a team leader, and then, took over as the group manager.

The fact that I knew the people well, and they knew me and valued me professionally, helped the transition to be the smoothest I could have wished for.

The Problem

On my first day as a group manager, aside from the physical transition to my own room (which was standard in that company), I arrived very early in the morning and tried to think, as I had in previous positions, about how I could turn my little haven into the most amazing thing possible.

But, for the first time in my life, I felt as if I didn’t have a clear answer or direction, and I suddenly got filled with panic. I didn’t fully understand why my position is needed or why I was even being paid for it. Supposedly, my role isn’t just about developing and delivering features anymore.

What is the first thing that someone in a panic does? Returns to what they know best, their comfort zone, which in my case was coding.
I grabbed a minor task, a small feature, that back as a team leader I didn’t have time for and worked on it.

The panic demons slowly faded, little by little, and I thought to myself- “Oh, this is where I can contribute!” since by now I’d already developed a lot in the group, and had a vast experience with both the technologies and the business domain.
Overall, I tried to be a good group manager by directing my team leaders on a professional level, while also helping them by reviewing some Pull Requests (others’ code contributions).

I truly believed that was the best way for me to grow them and improve their professional skills. I went and managed the group in this manner for about two months, before realizing that something was not working for me.

The Realization

I quickly started to realize that things in the group were not moving forward as quickly as I would have wanted them to. I also started sensing something wasn’t right about one of my team leaders, who I deeply respected and had faith in from the time he was an engineer in my team in my previous role as a team leader.
It was as if he was slowly losing his effectiveness.

During one of our 1:1 meetings, at a point when he felt like I crossed a line with my suggestions, he said something that got etched in my mind, and will most probably remain there for a very long time. He said-
“Yahel, I am the team leader! If you don’t trust me, just dismiss me, but I can’t take this constant interference any longer”.

It looked like he reached a limit, and hadn’t he been courageous enough to share it with me, I might have lost him as a team leader in my group in a matter of time.
Fortunately, I was able to set my ego aside and tell him that I would take a step back for a while and think about his comment.
For a whole month, his statement bothered me and was all I could think of.

I began writing down what I believed is right for me to deal with and what is not. And most importantly, how I should assess myself in this regard.
I started understanding that management is a highly versatile profession. Each group, team, and individual may differ in their needs and their ways of growing and developing.

The Solution

In order to understand how to perform my role as best as I can, I had to clearly define the project and its upcoming goals from a high-level perspective for myself.

At this point, I have to shortly explain what my group was developing in order to break down the ways to solve my problem.
The group develops a big real-time event-processing system, that is in a state of transitioning from an MVP to becoming production-ready (and is already late in the timelines). It also needed to replace an existing legacy product.

These are the main high-level principles I established for managing the project (these are specifics and may not exactly fit every project):

1. Maintain a good relationship with the client- Give close attention to their requests while providing good on-call service for production issues.
2. Develop the leadership layer- Let the three team leaders know they can rely on me, by shifting to a more gentle leadership style, personally suited to each of them.
3. Create short success cycles- Make the group feel a sense of progression over short periods of time, to keep their motivation high.
4. Look a step ahead of the upcoming goal- Define the group’s vision. What will happen once the product is finally shipped to production?

I also decided I wanted to build a team that is capable of delivering even more challenging features while providing the finest on-call service in the organization. We need to become domain experts and achieve a state where our engineering level is looked up upon.

After establishing and writing these principles, I finally felt confident in my approach to the management role. As a group leader, I have more significant things to do than running and overlooking the development teams’ sprints.
I have talented team leaders in whom I have high faith. It is their responsibility to ensure that sprints are completed successfully, tasks are finished and flags are raised when not.
Professional level and code quality are always something I genuinely care about, and everyone around me is aware of it. But, the team leaders are the ones responsible for putting this into action. It isn’t my role.

My role is 180 degrees different from what I initially thought. The best way to describe it is to build a vision for the project’s future. Look ahead and plan the roadmap for future sprints, quarters, halves, and years. All while guiding the team leaders and breaking down any barriers/blockers they may face, so that they can simply do their jobs efficiently. I’m not here to give them professional criticism. I’m here to support them and help them grow.
I may only interfere professionally in cases where there are disagreements between the team leaders. And even there, I don’t judge or decide for them, I gently help them figure out the solution that serves the project best.

The Result

From that point on, while implementing my new approach to the role, I felt as if the group simply led itself and everything came together smoothly. The people were much more connected to one another and to their mission, and the level of dedication and quality that I so desired to see, had finally arrived (and even exceeded my expectations!).

Can I say that my team leaders made no mistakes? Certainly not. One of the mistakes was particularly serious and caused some major political damage. But still, I kept reminding myself that I also made and still make mistakes.
As managers, we make hundreds of big and small decisions every day, and nothing is worse than being stressed and insecure about them.
Mistakes are inadvertently made when decisions are being made, but when you have the right backup and assistance, you can do the right thing and be accountable for them.

I am proud to say that during the rest of the role, the people in my group always understood how to fully take responsibility for their mistakes and grow from them while having the support they needed.

Ultimately, the group received a certificate of appreciation for achieving another big product milestone, for the meteoric improvement in performance that occurred in the group.
It did not happen by chance. It was due to faith in people, foresight, planning, and hard work.

Summary

The biggest lesson I learned from this experience was how big of a leap it is to become a manager of managers.

Releasing and decentralizing your authority is much easier as a team leader and much more complicated and challenging as a group manager.
Being on guard at all times, keeping your finger on the pulse of how your people are feeling, and giving them the necessary trust and support, are all crucial for this role. Along with leading the project onward to its future, and finally growing people professionally.

A bonus tip for any manager is that managers must assume they can fully trust their people from the start, rather them having them “earn” their trust. In case they misuse your trust, then you should reconsider their position under you.

Feel free to contact me via LinkedIn and discuss these topics :)