Peer to Supervisor Transition

In this episode, Ralph and Bill discuss identifying the key takeaways, insights, and concepts that we as leaders want our team members to remember, and perhaps more importantly, how we can help them apply those learnings to deliver positive results for the organization.

Bill Berthel: Welcome to the Get Emergent podcast, where we discuss leadership, team, and organizational topics and best practices. We like to provide ideas, concepts, and pragmatic experiments to help you develop your potential in your work and your leadership. I’m Bill Berthel.

Ralph Simone: And I’m Ralph Simone.

Bill Berthel: Ralph, today we’re talking about a topic that actually, I think, often comes up for us in our coaching but this has been coming up as a request for us to talk about on a podcast. This is the movement of going from a peer to a supervisor entering leadership, but specifically from being a peer in a group or a team.

Ralph Simone: Yeah, it’s uncomfortable for many people, but it’s really about a relationship change or relationship management.

Bill Berthel: Yeah, absolutely. I think most people that are in this space, they are excited about the promotion, they’re excited about the opportunity they’re being provided. But they may be a little apprehensive, a little nervous, maybe even have some concerns about how will the relationships change.

Ralph Simone: I think there’s initial fear, around awkwardness. It’s going to be awkward. How do I maintain my friendship while now becoming this person’s supervisor?

Bill Berthel: Yeah, I think it is awkwardness. Not too long ago, I was coaching a very talented young man. He was a high performer in a somewhat technical role. It was in manufacturing. And he was becoming the shift supervisor. So kind of a classic peer-to-supervisor, peer-to-leadership kind of movement. And he knew all the players. They were mostly male. It was a manufacturing floor, but high-tech manufacturing floor. He had demonstrated all the knowledge and the skills and the ability, had all the aptitude for leadership. Great young man. His greatest concern was the dress code in their organization. Everyone in the leadership role needed to wear, like, a button-down shirt and chinos or slacks. He couldn’t wear jeans and a sweatshirt anymore. And he was so concerned about that disconnect. I found that both are endearing about him and real. Right. Because I think it is about the relationship. He didn’t want any disconnect to happen, and he was simply concerned that dressing differently meant something.

Ralph Simone: Well, and it does, now it doesn’t have to, but I mean, I’m reminded of my days in Catholic school. One of the ways they leveled the playing field is that everyone wore a uniform. And that way there could be no discomfort created by people who had more or less discretionary income to buy clothing. And it was to keep the focus. So I can understand that discomfort.

Bill Berthel: Yeah, absolutely.

Ralph Simone: As I was preparing for this podcast, I was trying to think of my own transitions from peer to supervisor. And the one that was fairly challenging, although I think I navigated it reasonably well, was in college when I became an RA resident assistant, and I got placed on a floor with guys that I was friends with, that I was in class with, that we went out socially. Now I was going to be responsible for it. wasn’t exactly maintaining law and order, but let’s just put it that way.

Bill Berthel: Close to that.

Ralph Simone: And so it did create a bit of an awkward dynamic, no question about it.

Bill Berthel