From IC to Manager: Hard Truths About First-Time Leadership (Ep. 300)

welcome to the Manager Track podcast. This episode is a really special one. We’re hitting episode number 300,

and in celebration of that, we’re doing a round table conversation about what it really looks like to step into your first official leadership role. I’m joined by three guests who come at first time leadership from very different angles.

Choi is a nurse manager in the Bay Area. It’s fast-paced, high stakes, lots of complexity. Matt is the owner of Rio Ru Consulting and Amazon Marketing Agency, and he’s grown it from his first hire to a team of nine spread across multiple countries. He’s really transitioning from being that technical consultant to now being more so of a leader and business owner.

And then we have Elwa who works at Bloomberg, , and she’s led an engineering guild across a massive engineering organization where she really had to learn how to influence without formal authority.

Now she’s transitioning into her first official team leadership role.

All three of them went through our leadership accelerator. This is our 90 day manager readiness program. So you’ll hear them connect real experiences to the tools and mindset that they’ve learned that actually helped them on the job. We’re gonna get into what caught them off guard, how their definition of a good manager changed what was unexpectedly hard to learn and what they tell someone.

Stepping into leadership for the very first time. So whether you are thinking about or planning to move into leadership or you’re in your first official leadership role, or even if you’ve been in leadership for a while but never really learn the foundation of leadership through proper training, then this episode is going to be golden.

Now a quick heads up the audio, my audio in this episode. Isn’t up to my usual standards. There was a technical issue with picking up my audio. We did the best that we could, and so thanks for rolling with it, because this conversation is absolutely worth it.

Okay, let’s get into it and welcome our three panel participants.

I am so happy that you’re here. This is our episode 300, and just the fact that we’ve come such a long way and have talked about so many different leadership topics on this podcast, and now celebrating this with this very special episode and having you on as my honorable. Guests for this round table.

Um, to get us started, please tell us a little bit about your leadership responsibilities and your roles so that people know what kind of context you operate in. Before we dive into the actual questions and your experience and reflections, uh, on your early phase in, in leadership, Cho, tell us a little bit about yourself.

Yeah. Um, so I am a nurse. Um, and so I’m currently a nurse manager managing a program called CCT Critical Care Transport, um, in the Bay Area. Um, and so my background is ICU nursing and recently got into management. Uh, it’s been a year and a half now. 

and we know that, you know, the type of work that you do and the management, that role that you have is pretty fast paced. And lots of complexity and a lot of different people involved. 

Yes, 

Yeah. 

definitely. Mm-hmm. 

Good. Matt?

Yes, I’m Matt?

Bots. Uh, I own Rio Ru Consulting. We’re a full service Amazon marketing agency, so a lot of the products you buy on Amazon are sold by third party companies and they have to do a lot of marketing. So we work with those companies.

We started in 2016. I made 

my first hire in 2022, I want to say, and now we’re a team of nine, so, uh, we’re spread out across three countries too.

So that creates some additional, uh, complexity, but also opportunities for learning.

So 

you can already see where this is going with, uh, the different setups and scenarios that are represented here. 

From someone who is, you know, operating like Cho 

and Matt, who’s running his own consulting company, and, uh, you know, as a founder and the owner of a company moving into leadership, in addition to running sort of the expertise side of it, and then LOS, you’re bringing a different scenario to the table here as well.

Yeah, so I’m Eloise KPAs, and I work for Bloomberg. Lp, which is a FinTech company. Um, I’ve been in Bloomberg for over 10 years now, I have been leading the reliability engineering, um, guild for, our engineering department, which has more than 10,000 engineer. And, it is a large community of technical enthusiasts, um, specifically in the reliability engineering space. And it also coincides very much with what I do in my day job, which currently my title is infrastructure engineer, but I’m about, I’m like transitioning into my first. TL role. So my first team leader role, and I would say that the work that I’ve done in leadership over the last three years within the Reliability Engineering Guild has definitely given me a lot of preparation even just in this first couple of weeks, like this transitioning that I’m going through. I think if I didn’t have that experience, it would’ve definitely been much tougher for me to step into this, um, new era of leadership for myself. 

Congratulations on that. You know, different type of leadership role that you’re know now taking on. I do remember, and maybe to call out sort of an important aspect here too. All three of you were former participants in the leadership accelerator program. You were in different groups and different times.

But all of you made that commitment to yourself and the investment in yourself to really develop the skill of leadership alongside with continuing to build your, your, your technical expertise. Um, and what I love about all of you represented here is the type of leadership that you had and had to execute was different.

And so I hope that anyone listening can see from the different experiences or relate to the different scenarios that you call out ll s for you particularly, I remember how much of informal authority you had to exude and build up in order to influence across the board and so many different stakeholders and members of your guild.

And that’s, uh, as much of a leadership skill as any other as well.

Definitely. I think that was, that made it more challenging also, I thought, because I thought that if you have official authority, maybe it would’ve been easier for me to influence and to just be able to tell people, Hey, you have to go and, you know, do this ’cause you know, I’m your boss so you have to go and do it.

But, I think the skill of influencing people to go in a direction. That you think is good collectively for them personally, but also for the group collectively has been such a primal skill that I’ve been able to learn. And even now as I’m kind of moving into this official team leader role, I’ve realized, and even though I’m not even officially in it, I’ve realized that everything is influenced, that even if you told people. That, Hey, I’m your boss. I want you to go do this. If they don’t wanna do it, it’s they, they’re not gonna give it their best. So being able to develop that skill is something that I would encourage everyone to try and practice even when they are not officially in a leadership role. 

100%. People who work in such a situation or with volunteers or in a nonprofit. And you know that the direct formal authority isn’t gonna be the, the typical angle. You start to get really in tuned to what motivates people. Why are they here? What are they wanting to bring to the table? How do I acknowledge their contribution?

thank you for bringing that up. Well, let’s get to the meat of it. Um, what we really wanna talk about in terms of the lessons learned and also show that that journey of stepping into leadership. It’s not an easy road and you know, I’m gonna spare you from my personal experience, but I probably made every mistake in the book that you could make in my first couple of years.

And I actually, in addition to that thought, when someone said to me early on before I was promoted and took on the leadership role, someone said, you know, you’re gonna make mistakes. And I kind of brushed that off thinking, no, this is not gonna be that difficult. I’m sure I’m gonna make some mistakes, but it can’t be that hard.

This is a great team and we’ve already doing so much good work. It’s gonna be fine. Of course that totally backfired and I realized how much of an effort it takes and how much really goes into leading a team successfully and effectively. So let’s hear from, from you. What caught you off guard?

One of the main things that caught me off guard, um, was the degree to which I went into each new. let’s say leadership relationship, um, the perspective that my job was to know everything. Um, I, I was so accustomed for such a long time. I, I mean, being in consulting and, and marketing agency work, that sort of thing.

I mean, your, your knowledge largely is your product it’s easy to perceive someone. You’re adding to your team as another customer, uh, to whom you need to be. Infallibly confident, know everything, uh, be the one to go?

to for answers, that sort of thing. You create dependency with that. Um, And it’s, it’s not the good kind of dependency at all. I mean, you, you want interdependence with your team. You don’t want single direction of, uh, flow of influence. It’s, it’s not that way ultimately. And it didn’t wanna be that way in those relationships. And that showed up, uh, for me as. I think undue stress on myself, an unnecessary need to feel as though I had to be the one to solve every problem.

And essentially they were there to kind of help me to accomplish that. Um, they have their own path, they have their own expertise, and it, the more that I was able to step back, the more magnified their skills could be, along the way. One of the other things I would say surprised me a lot. Um, this was actually something that I used a tool from the leadership accelerator, uh, to address recently, but people present differently, um, face-to-face and I mean, this can certainly be the case interculturally as well, where people will, um, talk about themselves or a given topic in a way that maybe doesn’t directly address, uh, what you’re asking about or maybe is put in terms that. You know, or, or something that you want to hear, or it’s the way they want it to be, even if it is not currently that way. So recently we used as a team, the, personal SWOT analysis and the, personal user guides. Um, again, uh, I, I’d done that when our team was a little bit smaller and, uh, since we’ve made some new additions in the past year, reran that exercise, it was interesting to see the way people evolved, but even more so, it was interesting to see.

How 

people talked about themselves given the space, uh, compared to perceptions that we naturally have about one another. Um, we all have those filters and it’s a good way to get to the bottom of those.

And I think what you’re calling out there is how important it is for leaders to address that, 

Yeah, 

right? If you’re an individual contributor, you’re kind of just going, often, we’re going along, right? But then as a leader, you are the one who’s supposed to 

create the, the conversations to address those assumptions 

and perceptions.

Yeah.

of of with other people You learn solo does not mean alone and then you’re no longer solo Suddenly 

Right, right. 

we’re all in it together 

Great, great points. 

Choy, how about you?

Yeah. One, completely agree with Matt. Both of those points are very, 

Relevant. But I think one of the things that. 

I learned the most was being aware about yourself. I think that was something the first chapter, the first section of the Leader Accelerator was about learning about yourself.

Um, also like I think the first section of your book as well, and that was interesting to me ’cause. To me that’s fun. Like, let’s learn about yourself and see, who you are and where you are as a person. And eventually I understood that kind of, the more you know yourself, the better you can show up.

If you know your weak points, if you can know your strong points and gear your leadership with that knowledge in mind, you show up in a way. For others and you realize what you need and what you have. and then you can work on those points as you go through this. And one of the things, you know. I kind of thought leaders were people who already knew everything.

They got it down. And then I stepped into this role and was like, whoa. I felt like I knew nothing. , But as you learn about yourself and you just continue learning and growing and knowing that there is kind of no end to the learning process. It helps. And also I think one thing that you?

said was making mistakes.

Um, at first I was so scared to make a mistake. It was like very, very, I was like, I’m not gonna make a mistake. I’m not gonna get through it. But then I came to the point of accepting The, fact that I’m going to make a mistake and being okay with that. So I think those are kind of kinda jumped around there a bit, but a few points that, I learned and, and grew into becoming a leader. Yeah.

you bring up this really interesting point about awareness of yourself. Is there something, an example that you can think of where you realize like, huh. I’m learning this about myself and this changes then how I interact with others or how my leadership behaviors directly.

Yeah, the, the biggest thing that stands out is, a conflict.

Mm-hmm.

have a lot of anxiety when I wanted to speak up or need to have a tough conversation. I then realized that I am very avoidant, um, which I think I slightly knew before, but I think. My features good and bad were blaring at my face in this. Um, so the conflict avoidance was very intense for me. And one thing I had to work on was just doing it and being okay with it and sitting with that anxiety. And really the first time I had a tough conversation. I was shaking, like my voice was shaking. I was visibly. and nervous, but I did it. And you know, slowly, one after the other, even to this day, sometimes I, I still get nervous, but once I do it and just rip that bandaid off, it just like it ends up flowing. So kind of working on parts of yourself that, you know, weak in and just kind of getting through that. 

And remember in the program we worked on some of these conversations together, to prepare you for it, love that you bring this up. I think the point of like, sometimes we kind of know, but the consequences of not addressing it, not overcoming it aren’t as obvious as they are. Once we’re in a leadership role like you, not having had that conversation that was needed to be had would have immediately led to different outcomes and results.

yes. Exactly. 

So for me, I think when I, I was asked to, to lead the guild, and my, my technical background is not necessarily the same as the people that I was asked to lead, and it was very intimidating for me because. They are all much more qualified than I am. They have much more experience in their respective fields I even when, like when I started working with them just on like as a co volunteer and like as someone trying to help innovate in that space, I felt. Um, like all, you know, oh wow, I’m working with these really intelligent people and I just didn’t feel even good enough to be working with them on projects. And now I’m asked to lead them I’m feeling like these people are looking at me for direction, but what do I know? Like, why did, why have I even been asked to lead this group?

Like, what, you know, what did they see in me? I think they made a mistake. Like, Um, you know, I was just like completely overwhelmed. Not, I didn’t feel like I was good enough at all to, to take on the challenge. And if I didn’t have grit and like determination, and if I didn’t promise that I would like hold that position for two years at least, I think I would’ve run away.

You know, because it was really scary. and I think it was, that intimidation that was, that caught me off guard, but also empowered me in the end because. I pushed through, it showed me that I can learn new things and I can learn new skills. Very similar to what Matt and Josie had said, where, you know, we’ve got, you know, it’s, you have this capacity to learn and this might not be a technical thing that you’re learning, but it is a different skill that maybe you can’t see from the outside, you know? . But maybe you’ve learned how to control your emotions. You know, maybe you’ve been quite reactive, which is something that I can be quite reactive ’cause I like getting things done. And so having to learn to control that about yourself, um, has been equally empowering. And another thing that caught me off guard is I typically really appreciate people’s contributions.

And I would look at their projects that they had done and thought, wow, that’s so cool. And because I was in the space where I was leading a group of people to essentially innovate and do things that are not being done anywhere else in, in other organizations, in reliability engineering, I was giving people ideas and helping them come up with really cool things.

And so what I found myself is actually, I find myself being jealous because I had given people ideas they are doing really cool stuff and I’m like, Hey, but that’s actually my idea, you know? And I was, I felt myself really uncomfortable with that. And I actually found myself that I was trying to control the outcome of people’s projects to the point, because I didn’t want them to shine too brightly.

You know? I was like, woo, gotta watch this one She’s gonna outshine me or he’s gonna outshine me. And I had to kind of, you know, and my own manager, that, my own team leader was actually really instrumental and also super helpful. you know, in helping me. to realize that I need to let people like wrestle and like have their own moments.

And so that was a huge like change I think from going from IC to kind of having that mindset of, okay, now my role is to help others to shine and I have to celebrate their achievements. And that is why I’ve been given this opportunity is because I can innovatively and help people to do things that they. Wouldn’t have done without my guidance. And that is the celebration, not necessarily that execution of like landing the project. So, um, I think for me that was a big learning curve and something that I still sometimes have to check myself with. I still get that niggle inside when somebody does something because I gave them the idea and then I have to be like, you know, no, like, this is great.

It’s great that they’re like doing something. Actually better than I would’ve done with like that idea.

 to both I mean, Josie brought up a fear of making mistakes, one’s relationship to mistake, making changes in almost indescribable ways because we don’t want to make mistakes anymore before leading than we do. Wall leading. Um, 

Yeah. 

you have to accept that it’s going to happen and that when it does, 

let’s say greater than 95 times out of a hundred, uh, it is not going to be the. Atrophy that, uh, some part of your mind believes it’s going to be? I, I can resonate with Eloise too. I mean, I’ve had to get out of the way of my team members , to make sure that they have opportunities to shine too, to my clientele, because if I don’t, ultimately it all falls on me.

We can’t grow. I have to see that control and honestly, that’s been one of the most rewarding things. Uh, and, and my experience has been whether or not, it’s something that the client initiated that they expected me to do, uh, that I had a team member do, or whether or not it’s a, something that’s in scope or something that’s. Really a surprise to delight the client. Something that they didn’t expect us to go out and do. If I can share that credit with another team member, I notice clients begin to ask team members for things too, and it is such a relief. It gives space for me to get to projects that I have not gotten to in.

Months or longer in some cases. and out of that, I mean, we’ve been able to develop two new leaders on our team. I can’t manage, you know, eight other people. For too long. Uh, that’s, that’s just not how, let’s say my, my manager leader psychology works. Sometimes it isn’t as though I don’t interact with people who report to other people on the team, but. 

Goodness it’s a very large lift uh to do it all yourself And if you can develop other leaders the growth can be exponential People surprise you

Um, I think one thing, that both of you guys mentioned was going from IC to a leader, and 

that 

it’s just such a different role. And Eloise, I think I was actually excited to be a leader. You know, I wasn’t, I was, I was like, okay, great. Yeah, like, I’ll do this. I had just finished my master’s and I was like, yeah, like I’m.

I’m gonna do this, but I had a little bit of a rude awakening, or an awakening, I don’t know, uh, of like, oh, whoa, this is a completely different world. It was very shocking to me because I went from a bedside nurse, you know, working with people, putting very skill oriented, you know, as most ics are, to. What we are all doing now, managing people And programs. And it was a completely different, like this corporate world sitting down and, you know, being in meetings back to back was just a completely different world for me. So that transition, just a, a really big learning curve overall. And getting the hang of it was something that probably honestly took me. A year, at least a year and a half, and sometimes to this day, you know, still, still getting the hang of it.

And I think that’s totally normal and that is the thing that we often underestimate of how much effort and intention and time actually goes into and sort of sometimes making the mistakes. And those are catalyst to new learnings, but that is sort of that messy part that often to the public isn’t as visible for someone who’s not in it.

Yeah. 

They don’t see that on the outside ’cause we don’t talk about it as much. They’re sure there’s like getting better as a leader leadership practices, but actually. Sort of the behind the scene looks, looks fairly different. And I love Elwise what you bring up with this, like jealousy, and I think this is yet again one where we don’t mention it often.

And from my experience talking to leaders across the board, across the hierarchy level, so to speak, it is such a common experience Because I take the blame, but the credit goes to everyone else regardless of how much effort I put into coaching that person on the backend, giving them the idea, removing roadblocks, sometimes making really critical decisions for them that then they’re getting applauded for at the end of the day, and other leaders know it.

So other leaders around you, more senior leaders, totally understand the game. ’cause they’re in that same role. They know that yes, this team member is getting celebrated. They know that you are probably playing an instrumental role in the backend, but the way it is portrayed in an organization or communicated or how you’re, you know, elevating someone else up that just doesn’t feel that way internally.

It feels like we don’t get any of that credit. And it’s an really interesting internal thing to manage. ’cause if we leave it unmanaged, right, if we don’t recognize it, we will put our name on papers. We shouldn’t be, we will involve ourselves and show up to meetings we shouldn’t be in because we’re now, eroding some of the authority that the person who’s running the project who should be in charge actually has, we are controlling in just inserting ourselves way too much into the details.

And then. Like you Matt said, then we are never actually having the capacity to free ourselves up to work on the things that matter most. ’cause we’re too controlling and it sounds like such common sense. Like we all know that that’s not what we should do. And yet it happens all day, every day inside of your organizations.

Way more than I think we’re willing to admit. So thank you for calling that out and, and sharing how this is, you know, this is truly. Even if we’re totally well intended. Right. And we do sort of sign up to this idea that as a leader we’re here to elevate others. The reality is when it comes down to the moment when someone else is getting all the credit and you’re nowhere on that presentation or on that stage, or even the small places where someone makes a shout out to a person and you know, that was actually all your work, 

you’re just gonna have to take that 

and manage it.

Yeah.

I I been not for managers I 

in my first job out of college. Um. In, in my past life, uh, say at this point. But I read at one point, you know, leaders and managers can have this effect where they bring somebody on the team who’s really skilled and is doing a good job. can almost have this, um, like proud parent outlook on it. and I, I read that while I was being managed and I was like, huh, I wonder if that’s going on, in my small team. Because I 

knew I was doing a good job. I knew that I’d been well-trained, and I also knew that I was, I was bringing a lot to the table it started coming up in meetings.

My manager didn’t take full credit or anything like that for 

what I was doing but I could tell that he was proud to have brought me onto the team. 

Mm-hmm.

I think that helped me recognize very quickly that’s exactly the case Other leaders ultimately Are not gonna understand how much goes into it on the backend

Doesn’t mean can’t be proud 

Yeah. Yeah. And other leaders, those who will then 

be responsible for promoting you or giving you more responsibilities, those people all know and they will be looking at your, 

Performance. Not where is your name on it? On a, on a thing. But what is your team doing and are you able to elevate your team and rise their outcomes, their deliverables, to a higher standard or to increase what they’re doing or to pivot in the right direction?

That is what? Most organizations, right? Um, you know, there’s some exceptions, but in the vast maturity, other leaders is that is what they’re going to look at. And when we start to operate and understand, oh, okay, they all get the game, it’s a bit easier to manage our internal dialogue. Now it brings me to the second question, which is, how has your definition of what a good manager is?

How has that changed? Because, you know, this is like a parent or, any other sphere where we look at something, think, I think this is what good looks like, and then as we’re in it, that definition changes. What is something where you feel like, yeah, I’ve changed my mind on what I thought good management looks like versus what it is now?

And I’m gonna throw back the, the ball back into, Elise’s court and start with you.

Yeah, so I think I always thought that because I was in the technical space, I wanted to have a leader that was very technical and I didn’t even consider how important the. The people aspect, right? And, and all the little nuances and skills that you need to really be a good manager. And I, I’m, I have to admit, like I, I judged many of my managers and thought, well, you are not technical enough to manage me.

You know? Um, and so now having the experience, obviously not completely fully in the team, but I have kind of started that road, and I can already. Like feel that feeling that, oh my goodness, I was so wrong to judge because wow, it takes so much to even just have like a friendly one-to-one, especially with people when you’re coming near into a team and people don’t know you. To have that friendly one-to-one can, can actually take a lot. So it takes a lot to, to develop, um, that skillset. So I think my respect for what team leaders and managers in general go through has completely changed. And, like one of the things I reflected on when thinking about this question, uh, was I have a very specific way that I like to do things. And as I started leading, I started realizing that I have this bias. And I think it’s something that we also speak on, very much in the training that we did is how you can have a bias towards people that, um, operate in the world very similar to yourself.

And I started picking that up that I would gravitate towards people who were very action oriented, who wanted to get things done. And I almost kind of dismissed people or thought there was something wrong with people who didn’t operate the way that I do. And through our training I kind of realized that, hey, I should give those people an, you know, an opportunity to express themselves, be, you know, be a bit slower in, ’cause I can be quite fast-paced in like how I do things.

So give people a moment to just express themselves. And then I started seeing things that I was missing. So actually my bias, you know, actually held me back. It was like a blind spot that I had. And I started realizing that, wow, I could be missing out on amazing contributions from people because I was like, so focused on just people that were similar to me. And so, just thinking about that and looking at managers that I’ve had. My thought pattern about is good in a manager, has completely changed and it’s made me realize that a good manager is someone who is constantly wrestling and like challenging themselves, really on you know, personal level constantly. Challenging who they are as a person. Am I a good person? You know, because sometimes you run into situations where you’re like, wow, did I actually think that? so you are challenging the way you see the world and challenging your own perception of what you think is right and wrong. so I think someone who’s open, you have to be a good manager.

You have to be open to, experiences that other people have. standards for life is not necessarily the same as yours, the way you see the world. So you’ve gotta really be able to yourself in other people’s shoes and imagine like how they are feeling. while at the same time, I think a good manager will have to have a strong viewpoint because you have to achieve certain things, but be flexible enough to allow others to influence. Where we are going. ’cause otherwise people are gonna feel like they’re in the military and you are just taking them, you know, because that’s your decision. And if you really want it to be a team, us going in a direction, you’re gonna have to learn how to, help other people to come with you. And then I think it gets tough when you have to think about all these things. And sometimes I think, you know what, it’ll just be easy if I just tell people, this is where we are going. This is what we are doing. And. This is it. then you realize that you’re not gonna get as much out of people if you do that. So leading with, with heart and leading with, I call it love because I think if you really love people, you know truly in all essence. Um, and sometimes it can be hard, especially when someone, you feel someone is difficult. It can be tough, you know, to like, think about love. But if you, if you think about, okay. Care. Care for the person that you’re leading. I think that will help you to be a good manager. 

about you? 

I started my business 

And

cultural archetype for someone starting a business here in the US just about everybody knows, because there’s the same or six individuals talked about nonstop on the news. my thought was, well, leader looks like a erkin. You know, somebody who knows everybody from a, knows everything I should say from a young age and, has this persona and, leadership is, is about, you know, standing out in a certain way, and I got nowhere with that. When you are, starting out on your own and, and you think, uh, that that leadership looks one way, and for you it looks very, very different, than that, you, you almost have to find that persona and sometimes life will. I think whip that into shape from you. It was a bit of an awakening for me to, bring the first person onto my team because I realized how difficult it was for me to delegate, the degree to which I, I felt that responsibility meant taking things onto my own shoulders and to some degree it still does.

You have to own things to clients. I mean, ultimately, like the buck stops with you, it, it doesn’t go anywhere else. That does not mean, uh, that it should start with you. It does not mean that, you have to appear a certain way on, on every single day, and that that’s going to be what gets the best results for you and your team and your clients. Ultimately, you’re shaped by your environment just as much as you’re working to shape your environment. And it’s not about embodying an archetype. Um, I, I really do think as we’ve been talking about and, and sort of, uh, circling around here, it’s, it’s about becoming yourself to a higher degree and, really insisting on the outcome you’re looking for without. Trampling on the influence from other people or from 

just other environmental factors let’s say So maybe that sounds a little bit metaphysical or something like that but for me it’s been a deeply personal journey and I’m sure that is the case for everybody else too Whether or not they perceive it the same way I do 

Todi. 

Yeah. one very much relate to that for me, I think 

we see from managers is kind of the tip of the iceberg. and once you. Get into that role, you realize it’s an iceberg. Um, and there’s a lot more underneath. So what I saw for managers and what my thought of a manager was buttoned up, very organized, just really kept everything in order. and so I had a whole lot of imposter syndrome once I started. You know, so it was like, okay, so I have to be this person. I have to have my hair perfect every day and, you know, make sure everything’s organized and perfect and, you know, put a lot of energy into that. Um, but really just as Matt said is I’ve learned throughout that journey is. Being yourself, but also being a leader that way of what your style is. So I, I think when I was doing your leadership course, I was still in that imposter syndrome And like I said in the beginning, like the awareness of yourself and being comfortable in who you are, brings a lot out. Of you and brings out a shine when you’re able to be yourself and be a leader at the, same time.

And knowing it’s possible to do that general. Yeah. 

the one thing that seems to stand out amongst all three of you is you got into it and then you quickly realized the only way forward to be successful is to be open. To a whole lot of new ideas and redefining what good leadership looks like, redefining what you, what your role is now in all of this.

And I think, you know, the fact that you’ve all gone through this transition successfully and are sort of like successfully on that path to the next level is also demonstration of them, the internal mindset. How you look at these things and obviously, it clearly comes through in your reflections of what happens.

And I hope that the audience listening to this, they that or people watching it will realize, yes, that is the way forward beyond everything else, it’s to be open, to really challenge yourself, your perceptions and your ideas of leadership to be able to evolve and, and realize this is a steep learning curve.

And, sticking to a paradigm or sticking to this idea, like Matt said, this ideal of a leader. That’s likely not, gonna help you moving forward. Now as we’re sort of coming to the end of the conversation, I’d love to hear two things from each of you. What is something that was unexpectedly hard to learn?

As a leader. And what is one thing that you would say to someone who’s moving into a leadership role for the first time and they came to you and said like, what kind of advice do you have for me? So hard to learn. And what type of advice? Cho do you wanna go first? I.

yeah, sure. So, one of the things that was hard to me, or even new, a completely new concept was managing up. I didn’t even realize. That was a thing you had to do. And once that clicked, I noticed a huge difference in, the way that my team was able to function as well. Like what I was able to get kind of holding my manager accountable as well.

I thought I was just supposed to listen to what he said and kind of march to his orders, but I didn’t realize that I can, you know, push back and have, um, more of an opinion and a say. So that was one thing that was awakening, and made a difference when I was able to of put into play and understand that relationship. and then one piece of advice I.

have, I think I’m kind of sticking to a theme here is, continue growing and learning. It’s never gonna stop. and. Learn about yourself. those are the two things, you know, learning about yourself and continuing to push and grow. To this day I’m still to your podcast and other leadership podcasts, just to kind of know how and what other perspectives there are out there.

There’s not only one way to do things. There’s so many different ways to do things, so just keeping that in mind as you are going through. your learning curve and your leadership style. 

I would say the 

for me 

learn, and I’m still learning this in new ways, is, uh, even if it’s your business, it is not about you. and, never cease to be surprised how little it is about me. Ultimately, I have my client relationships, I have team relationships. , The less in fact that it’s about me, the less that I’m the face of the business. In every interaction, the less even the. am always the one coming up with ideas. I mean, not only do other people have an opportunity to shine, but you also realize you’re contributing to something that’s bigger than just how you show up on a particular day.

I guess that’s the way it looks to me right now. But, it. I said, it never ceases to surprise me. Um, in terms of advice, I would have, uh, do not try to create systems, or processes for how to do things without team buy-in. we have this top-down idea that can seep in with leadership A lot of times where we figure, you know, well, we’ll make decisions, we’ll set things up, and then people will simply follow If you can get buy-in from the earliest possible stage, find out how people actually work, um, and then collaborate to 

make processes better, more 

efficient less duplicative and so on It’s it’s a much better outcome And frankly you get buy-in because buy-in’s already there you don’t have to create it so don’t don’t try to do that top down It it works a lot better to get buy-in

If I could like yell from the rooftop, it’s like contribution is so underestimated as an, as an asset 

to bring people in. Psychologically speaking, we wanna contribute. Like if we’re 

engaged, we wanna do a good job, we wanna contribute. So that’s like right on the table as leaders, we just need to create the space and pick it up.

Yeah, so I mean, I’ve just learned so much already from Josie and Matt, just in their last comments, I’m like, oh, thanks for that. I’m gonna definitely use that. That’s such good advice. So thanks for that. For me, something that I’ve recently been thinking about a lot is there’s so many emotions that come up the. The relationships or even just interactions that’s outside of like, let’s get the job done. Right. There’s a lot to get done. Um, and I think depending on a person’s personality, it can be tough, um, to deal with in the sense that you might take things so personally. think, well, they don’t like me, or, you know, something must be wrong with me.

And that’s, that’s why this person is speaking to me like this, or, so there’s, there’s a lot of emotions and I thought to myself, maybe it’s just me, but you know, I’m sure maybe Matt and Josie can, can say, no, it’s not just me. , I feel like I, internally I immediately react. So like if there’s like a chat that I wasn’t invited to, you know, like if. a private message, I would be like, oh wow. Like, what does that say, how they feel about me? the bottom line in, in like leading up to, and saying these, these points is, I think not being reactive, even with your emotions. So being able to control your thoughts, it’s tough. It’s tough to learn. Every time something happens, you have to challenge yourself and say, okay. Is that really the case? Is it me or is it just the situation? So I think what has been tough for me to learn is like, stop, think, don’t take things personally. It’s probably got nothing to do with you. I think that’s been tough to learn just because it is such a people business, right?

So it’s quite challenging. And then in terms of advice, I think. Something that I, I’m so grateful for was, was the course that I did with you, Ramona, because many people told me, you’re gonna learn this on the job, you’re gonna learn how to manage on the job. And I was like feeling so out of my depth that I felt like I needed someone to help me just to. Tell me that I’m not crazy, that these feelings that I’m having, you know, and someone to give me guidance at least. And I think just having that guide, you know, someone to tell you and to show you that, look, this is like a new skillset. It’s like anything, it’s like learning to ride a bike. It is something that you can learn and you can master and you can be good at it. And actually going through your course made me so passionate about this point to people who haven’t led before, because I think people sometimes get a, a poor experience of leadership because they don’t have the tools or the guide someone to help them. And even if organizations have good programs, you know, they might just not necessarily be the thing that helped. Like you as an individual. So I think seeking help is really important and finding someone a bunch of people, like within your program, you’ve got a couple of other people who are in the same boat as you are. So that’s really nice because we get to, chat with each other and understand that it’s not just me going through this is what it’s like becoming a leader. So that would be my advice is to find a guide and someone who can help you.

thank you for creating such a beautiful ending to this conversation. You know, there are different resources out there from listening to podcasts, to reading books, to taking a program like the Leadership Accelerator. But at the end of the day, I think that message of, or even having mentors internally or support system.

But to realize like, this is something that just like, we wouldn’t become an engineer without going through a specific training. We wouldn’t try to, you know, go down, uh, ski down a, a black, slope without taking some lessons on how to ski. These are the things that with leadership, we have to put forward.

We have to make that investment. When we don’t, and small things happen, totally unintentional, but our actions either disengage. Demotivate employees or erode trust. This stuff is hard to come back from. And so, you know, ultimately it is you building your career, investing in that asset that you build up.

I appreciate so much for you coming on, the Manager Track podcast and this round table conversation to share your own experiences and again. Provide that kind of space where you talk openly a bit what’s happening behind the scenes and what are some of these feelings for people to realize, yeah, this is part of the course.

This is normal. It’s not that I’m not cut out to be a leader. It’s not that I’m not ready or not good enough. It literally is just a path to walk that’s not so easy. Thank you for everything you shared. anything you wanna add.

I think I learned a lot just being here and hearing you guys talk. So write what you said. Um, Elise, I wish I was taking notes here.

was just saying that I would second that.

It’s a great experience, so thanks for everything.

, Matt Choy Ellis, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. I appreciate everything that you shared. You dropped tons of, sort of nuggets of wisdom here and like we just said, taking notes. This is really helpful

So that’s a wrap for episode 300. A huge thanks to Cho, Matt and Elwa for being so honest about what it really feels like behind the scenes when you move from being an individual contributor to being a leader.

A few themes that really stood out for me in this conversation. You don’t need to know everything. You do need to develop self-awareness. Influence matters even when you do have formal authority and you’re going to have to manage your own internal reactions more than you expect. If you are listening and you are early in your leadership and you’ve been thinking, why does this feel harder than I thought? Please take this as a reminder that likely nothing’s going wrong. You are just learning a new skillset. Now, if you found this episode useful, share it with a friend or a colleague who’s stepping into leadership right now, and if you haven’t yet, follow or subscribe to the manager Track

in your podcast app or on YouTube, and if you want structured support with tools, practices, and feedback, and go way deeper than what we were able to today. As you build your leadership fundamentals, you can learn more about the leadership accelerator

at AR cova.org, you can find all the details to it in the show notes if you’re even just a slight bit curious about what it looks like to develop those skills in that small group setting with other people going through the same experience, plus a really well structured, proven curriculum that gets you ready for leadership in 90 days. Then schedule a leadership strategy call with me directly to talk about what your situation is like and develop that strategy that gets you to be a successful, competent, and confident

first time manager. I look forward to hearing from you and we’ll be back next week with episode 301.