We’re really good at promoting top performers. What we’re not nearly as good at is preparing them for the completely different skill set that comes with leading a team. I learned that pretty quickly when I moved into my first leadership role and realized there was a lot I had not been prepared for.
Becca Hammer and I have both spent years in sales, leadership, and developing teams, and we’ve both seen how different the reality of management is from what people expect going in. You have to stop jumping in and doing the work yourself. You have to learn how to coach, manage up, give feedback, delegate, and give your team room to make mistakes and learn from them.
In this episode of The Real Work of Leadership, Becca and I are talking about the shift from top performer to new manager, what surprised both of us when we first moved into leadership, and why developing new leaders has to go a lot further than handing someone a new title and expecting them to figure it out.
3:14 Becca and Elisa’s first experiences as new managers
5:33 Taking everything on and learning when to question the status quo
9:05 Moving from top performer to actually coaching a team
13:07 Your team is not you
15:54 Why companies promote leaders without preparing them
22:22 Getting clear on why you actually want to lead
29:47 The identity shift from top performer to leader
32:01 Transparency, trust, and what leaders can’t always share
36:21 Three skills new managers need to develop early
48:18 Developing yourself as a leader when your company isn’t doing it for you
Connect with Becca Hammer
Becca Hammer is a sales and sales enablement leader with experience across media and SaaS. She began her career in sales, grew a $3 million book of business, and later moved into sales management, leading a team responsible for $15 million in revenue. She eventually moved into sales training, where she combined her sales experience with her passion for teaching. Today, she helps organizations strengthen sales management and leadership development through training and enablement.
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Mentioned in From Top Performer to New Manager with Becca Hammer
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