When You’re Promoted Above Your Peers

Speaker A: Hey, CS psychos. Rachel Provan here. And um, on today's episode, we're going to be talking about one of the toughest transitions most leaders ever have to go through and that's getting promoted above your peers. So we'll get into how your relationships will change, what to focus on. Now that you aren't doing all the work yourself, the mindset shifts you'll need to have moving into a leadership role. Plus some tips on on how to make conversations with former peers as cringe free as possible. That's all coming up next, right here on Psychology of Customer Success. Stay tuned. Humans don't think or behave like computers. You can't just run a command and get them to do what you want them to do. So why are you still basing your CS strategy based solely on logic? I'm Rachel Provan, CS leadership coach, award winning CS strategist and, um, certified psych nerd. I teach CS leaders how to build and scale world class CS departments using a combination of strategy, leadership and mindset using my secret weapon, psychology. Come join me every Wednesday for Psychology of Customer Success, where we'll dive into why people do the things they do, what motivates them, and the effect that has on your CS strategy, team dynamics and executive presence. Make sure to subscribe on Apple, Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts and make sure to share it with your CS bestie. Talk soon. And here's to your success. So I remember when I was first promoted to manager. I was 27. I think it felt like things were really on track here. I was in management, I was under 30. I was in a long term relationship living with someone that I was pretty sure I was going to marry. Everything was on track, everything's going perfectly. Guess what life has to say when you think that. So I'm going to say that things did not all work out perfectly with any of that. And things are still okay. Things are still better than okay. Things still worked out exactly as I wanted them to be. Just I didn't really know what that looked like and now I do. It looks a little different than I first thought and it's actually better for me. So as a new manager, you're going to make mistakes. There's just no way around it. Look, it's an entirely new environment. There are landmines everywhere, people's egos, insecurities. There's confirmation bias. And these aren't things that we learn to navigate growing up in the classroom. Among the many things they don't teach us, that would have Been much more helpful than learning to make a potato battery. Understanding how to act with people when your relationship changes, the hierarchy of the relationship changes. It's a really tricky thing. And, um, some guidance would have been useful. So if you are looking to become a manager sometime in the near future, don't wait till you get there. Start reading up on leadership and management now and learning about that now, because I guarantee you it's not going to be something that just comes naturally to you. That's not really a thing. So I will say making a mistake does not mean you're a failure. Making mistakes just means you're learning. Quick story here. I was in a curriculum morning the other day for one of my kids, and that's just where the teacher tells you about what they're going to be teaching this year. Kind of their thoughts and attitudes about teaching and what you can expect. Some are better than others. And um, this one was just. I'm so excited because she's so incredible and she said this and it just lit off a bell in my head. She was talking about how she looks at the kids mistakes to monitor if they're making the same mistakes over and over. That helps her and her co teacher figure out where they need help and, um, how to fix any issues that they might be having. Or say, like, oh, I see you're making this mistake over and over. This is the piece of information you're missing. Fairly obvious standard. But then she said we also monitor to see if they're not making mistakes. Because if your kid's not making mistakes, that's not good either because it means they're not being challenged, it means they're not learning, they're not getting better. And that just blew my mind. Even though I already think this, it just hearing that from a teacher, from a school was just so awesome because I just think it's such a healthier way to approach learning and to be getting it at that age is really, really cool. But immediately I was like, wow, am I challenging myself enough? This all still feels fairly new to me, even though it's been almost three years of me coaching and leading my cohorts and doing one on ones and podcasting and being in front of people. But, uh, definitely a lot of it is still new. Am I as terrified? Am I making as many mistakes as I was in the beginning? No. So does that mean I'm coasting? Does that mean I'm not learning? I don't know. But then I remembered how many typos and mistakes I made with the Emails that went out with my last launch of the cohort for CS Leadership Academy. And I thought, oh, I'm probably doing just fine. Definitely still learning the email software. But that's just a little aha, uh, moment I had. But just so you see, I still mess up regularly. I kind of smack my head and then say, okay, well, I guess we're gonna see. Hopefully there aren't too big consequences for that. But most of the time, if you just call out like, okay, I handled this this way. That wasn't great. It tends to go over a lot better than just pretending the mistake didn't happen. So this is something to bear in mind in the first place. But back to getting promoted. So I've been a new manager many times in that the first time I was promoted above my peers, and then from then on, when I went to new organizations, I'd either be building up a team myself, but most often I would be coming in to an existing team and having to build trust with them. I can say for me, certainly getting promoted above my peers was the most challenging. And I definitely made a lot of mistakes and learned from them. And almost 20 years later, not aging myself that much, maybe 17 leadership is my specialty. That didn't come easily. It didn't come without trial and error. And one theme kept coming up over and over with every lesson I learned, and that was, it's not about you anymore. You can't make your team successful on your own. It's about them. What do you need to do to make them successful? So just keep that in the back of your mind or the front as we move through this, because it really does turn out to be the key to so much of this. Look, being promoted above your peers. Uh, generally it's considered trial by fire, whether you realize it or not. Like, yes, it's going to be exciting and you should celebrate. It is exciting, but you're going to be dealing with some things in the background that maybe you didn't think about. Even if you're friends with some of these people, they might have wanted the promotion too. They might kind of resent you. Right now. You're dealing with people that might be resenting you while you're trying to build credibility and trying to retain these friendships and at the same time learn a completely new skill than what got you promoted in the first place. And this is something that I see happen a lot, where people will get promoted from individual contributor or CSM to manager without any sort of training on how that's different. And they are Just completely different jobs. So even if you're still managing some accounts yourself, which personally, I don't think you should be, but that is not always up to me. Uh, in Customer Success Leadership Academy, we teach you how to get out of that so that you can be just focusing on leading, managing, and getting the best out of your team. But in general, this is more about that part of it than it is balancing your workload between IC and manager, because that is a whole other issue, and it's really not ideal. But I do think that separating the two really helps you begin to see, like, oh, this is a completely different job, and the things that I have to do are in no way what made me successful before. So here are some potential pitfalls that most new managers deal with, and hopefully this will help you navigate the transition more easily. The first one is the hardest pill to swallow. Don't assume the relationship will stay the same. It's hard. When I first became a manager, I was promoted above my peers. Some of them very good friends who I'd been friends with for, like, five years or so. And I was very close to them. I thought, this is great. I figured they'd be thrilled their new boss is automatically on their side. We were going to have so much fun. I was going to be a cool boss. It really never occurred to me that they might have wanted that position too. I also had no idea that while they were really fun as friends and really awesome, they might not be the best employees. That was a little bit of a surprise, because I respected these people. They had smart things to say when talking about life relationships, when we were bitching about work stuff to each other. They made a lot of sense. It's just a little different when you're the one managing them. But I wanted to prove that I'd be a cool boss. I told them, look, I'm gonna be cool. Don't worry. If you have to take a long lunch, no big deal. You come in late, I'm not gonna make a big deal about it. So predictably, they did what I said. They started coming in late, they took long lunches. And I had kind of meant like, whatever, you're 10, 15 minutes late. I'm not gonna bite your head off about it. They took that to mean an hour or two late, which, uh, didn't work as well for me. At the same time, they seemed really irritated by it. And they kept kind of pushing the line to see how late they could come in before I would say anything. I didn't want to be A jerk. But I started getting a little impatient. So now I'm having an attitude. They're having an attitude, but nobody's saying anything. They continued to push at these boundaries, as people will do, until there were really consequences. Missing so much work was having an effect on the work that they could do. How much they were getting done, how well they were able to do it. When I did have to call them on that, things got really ugly really fast. You know, you can't be going crazy at girls night one night with people one day, and then the next day be like, hey, you know, you're not hitting your numbers. It does not go over well. I can tell you this. So one of the first thing, one of the most important things you can do as a leader is being clear. A lot of times when we're trying to be cool, a good, nice manager, like we may have had in the past, we end up not being clear. And if someone doesn't know what you want from them, like, for example, if you say, oh, here's this report. Do it when you can. That's really confusing. It sounds like you're being easygoing, but it's like, okay, so, like, is this a priority? Isn't it? I guess it's not a priority. So it's something that needs to be done, but I'm going to back burner it. That tends to be what the employee hears. Whereas you're thinking like, I, uh, was trying to be cool by not pressuring you with this, and I haven't heard to think about it ever again. Being clear is kind to both of you. It can feel like you're barking orders at someone by saying, like, I need this by this date. There's nothing rude about that, saying, okay, I have this assignment. Here's when I need it by. Here's the results we're looking for. Giving them a lot of context. It's respectful. It's really not rude. You're not barking orders at them. You are not being disrespectful in that way. It's a, uh, weird experience the first few times you have to do it. You are going to have to set fairly clear boundaries from the start. Most people will skip this step, and it will suck for them. But you both know that something has shifted, right? It doesn't mean you can't stay friends. It does mean you're probably not going to. I hate to break it to you, most of the time that does happen. Friendships that you had as an individual contributor don't tend to continue if you are leading those same people. They might if they're in another department or they might not, because the relationship just changes. Looking back, I wish I had sat down with each friend and told them, look, while we're at work, things are going to have to be a little bit different so that I can be fair to everyone and not be a jerk. You can't give your friends preferential treatment. And while that's easy enough for both of you to agree to, it's going to feel strange once you actually start putting that into place because it's a different dynamic than you've had with them before. I'm not going to say this is a fun conversation or a fun experience. It's not. But there's been a shift, and if you don't acknowledge that, it's going to come back to bite you. It will only create resentment if you act as if nothing has changed. The best thing you can do here is to call it out. Now, after that conversation, I understand that you don't just want to, like, go into boss mode and not be a friend of theirs at all. The best way to make this transition and to still have a good relationship, start making the relationship you have with them more about them. Being someone's manager means helping them navigate their challenges and celebrate their wins. That's part of friendship, too. And yes, it's going to feel strange and like you aren't being as good a friend when you stop sharing stories about yourself and details about your life. But by shifting the focus, uh, of your friendship and trying to let them lead more of the conversations, ask them more questions to help them get to answers of what they should do on their own, rather than saying, well, I know how to do this and this was my experience. Do less of that. Because you don't want to seem to be thinking so highly of yourself in all ways now because you're now promoted above them, that can very easily come off that way. Just listening and being supportive about topics that aren't about work is going to be, first of all, really good practice for you as a manager. But more importantly, that's the way you retain that friendship. Because it's really not fair to be talking to them about details about your love life or whatever, and then the next day be talking to them about, why is this account still red? That's not fair to them to expect them to do that switch. But it is reasonable for them to see you as a support system because as a manager, you are. And honestly, by shifting the focus of that friendship and of the relationship onto them and how you can help them by being an ear, by being a support instead of sharing your tales of woe. That's actually going to be much more beneficial. And ironically, you're actually being a much better friend. They might not be being as, as good of a friend to you, but we're going to talk about where to get that support. It's just that you don't get that exact support from them anymore. And um, you can still go out for a drink with your work friends. Just buy them around and then skip out after one drink. That earns you plenty of cool points. But no one wants to get drunk with their boss. If you don't drink, you don't have to do it at all. Drinking is not part of the job if you don't want it to be. I can promise you this. You are not doomed to a life with no friends. I know that when I started this and I realized that my friends weren't kind of coming along for the ride and it wasn't the way I thought it would be. It's like, well, uh, this is where I spend the majority of my time of my day that I'm conscious. If I can't be friends with these people, where am I supposed to find friends? You will start finding friends among other managers. Now I know that sounds weird and they seem all stuffy and kind of clique ish or just not approachable. It will become natural very quickly as you start to join the same meetings and collaborate on cross functional tasks. The other managers can also provide guidance when you have a sticky management situation, uh, that you don't know how to handle. And people appreciate being asked for advice. They like to be able to show off like, oh, they recognize that I'm good at this and I can show them how to do their job better. I can help them out of the situation that makes most people feel really good. So don't be afraid to do that. And interestingly, a lot more people respect you if you're willing to admit, like, hey, I have no idea how to handle this. I'm new at this. What would your advice be? People respect that a lot because it shows that you're just not pretending to know everything, that if you say something you probably do, you aren't faking everything. So my next tip, don't think that your way is the only right way. So when I was new to the role, I felt like I have to prove myself, I have to get these people to respect me. And I thought the best way I could help my team and make them successful was to show them what I'd learned. I was promoted because I'd become the best CSM I could be. Why wouldn't they want that too? I'd done all the hard work for them. I'd researched, I'd asked questions of others in the field who were having success. I worked with upper management to advance my career. To be successful in this role, I knew I had to make the team successful. And I only knew one way to do that, which was the way I did it. Now, I wasn't trying to be a jerk. I just reverted to what I was comfortable in, which was how to do the individual contributor role. There was one problem with that. No one had asked me how they should be doing their job. They had been doing their job just fine. For the most part. They felt they were doing them just fine. And, um, four out of five of them were. They just weren't doing it my way. When I was seeing what they were doing, I was like, oh, that's not going to work. I better put them on the right track and have them do it the way I did it. That is micromanaging. I didn't mean it to be, but I was. It's hard because being a leader is not about checking everyone's work and making sure all the boxes are checked. Everything is where it's supposed to be. Everyone has done everything that they're supposed to do. That's all you really know how to do when you first become a manager, because again, you don't know how to influence people. But it's not about checking everyone's work. You can't do everyone's job for them. That's really what it comes down to. Because if you are checking that everyone has sent every email they're supposed to send and that they have a plan on every single account and what is it and are, uh, the steps right? And would you be doing it that way? It's not possible to keep up with that. And you're going to burn out really fast because you're trying to now do the work of five people or four people or whatever your team is. That's just not possible. So your job as a leader is to be clear about what's expected of each team member. What do they need to achieve, what numbers, what KPIs, with whom, when do the who, what, when, where, how, why? So what do they have to achieve, where do they need help and then get out of the way, make sure they have what they need to achieve. The results and be very clear that your role is to help remove blockers and that a blocker can be, I don't know how to do this. They will never be in trouble for asking questions. It will be a problem if they know there's a problem and they didn't ask for help. Because it can't be your job to know where every single account is. It is theirs. If they aren't sure how to change an account or make it better or they think someone's going to churn and their plan isn't working, they should let you know. Not that you're necessarily going to be able to do something about everything, about every red account. You're not magical and powerful. You can't help companies closing. You can't help executive sponsor changes. There are some things you can do on executive sponsor changes, but, you know, those tend to be some of the biggest issues where it's like, you're probably not going to win this one. But just knowing that, like, hey, they've acknowledged this one isn't going well, here's what I've done. And having that conversation with you is basically just, we're working on this together. Are there any blockers? Anything that you're missing? Okay, I agree. Nothing much more to be done. Not your fault. Let's document why this is happening and move on to the next. But they're the one who needs to bring this kind of thing up to you. And by doing that, it's not only going to highlight their negative work, it's collaborating with you. So there just really shouldn't be major surprises. They should tell you, like, hey, as an overall, this is going well. This isn't going well, but those are kind of the highlights. Stay with us. We'll be right back. If you're listening to this, thinking, uh, okay, but how do I actually do this in my company? That's exactly why I created the CS Leadership Academy. This podcast gives you the psychology, the Academy gives you the frameworks, the how to's and, um, community of CS leaders figuring this out together. Plus you get direct coaching from me. If you're tired of figuring it out alone and want a real system for nailing your role as a CS leader, go to provansuccess.com csla and see if it's a fit for you. Hope to see you there. If they need help on something, if they don't know a process, if they don't know how to handle a particular customer, great. If they come to you and say they don't Know how to do something or they have a question. The one cardinal rule with managing something like this is you then cannot yell at them for having a question or not knowing how to do something. If you've had to explain it five times, maybe say, all right, we did talk about that. It's in the recording of our last video. I'm going to ask you to go back and check that because we did discuss this, but you really have to be okay with. Okay, I'm so glad you asked. Let's talk about what have you tried so far? What else are our other options? And go from there. Really make it coaching rather than just taking over the whole thing. And now it's your job to fix everything. That's probably not possible. So respect that. These people probably know how to do their job and do it well, but you're there to help when things aren't going perfectly. Another part of this is being honest about what you know and what you don't know. Just like, um, them. When you're promoted above your peers, they know you're a new manager, they know you don't know everything. And acting as if you aren't a new manager and all of a sudden do know everything because this new title has been conveyed will only make your team irritated. So being a little bit vulnerable is a huge plus here. Being honest about the fact that you don't know everything, but you'll be getting guidance from other leaders and remind them this is a group effort. This is all of your team, and you will work together to make your team the best it can be. Then stay open to their suggestions. You don't have to take every single one, but you do need to listen to their suggestions. Ask why they think this is a good suggestion. Suggestion. What do they think the benefits will be? Not just like, why, but okay, interesting. So why do you think that's the best course of action here? What are going to be the benefits? Do you see any risks here? You don't have to do everything they suggest, but you need to give them that respect to consider it, because you don't have to come up with every new idea. In fact, you shouldn't. Having other people on your team come up with ideas is going to make them so much more engaged. And so, and seeing those, uh, ideas actually played out and affecting strategy, and then you're saying, oh, hey, this person on our team actually came up with this strategy. So we've been implementing it, and here are the great things that have been happening. You've got to call them out for that. You can't take credit for every good thing. Your team doing well is all the credit you need. By handing off credit to them for the things that they've come up with, it just makes both of you look better. Also, you need to play to their strengths. This is something most new managers don't know how to do or no one's taught them. So if one of your team members is great with content and great at writing, great. Let them write the email templates for your onboarding sequence. If another is good with data, ask them to present their findings at your team meeting. When you give others a chance to shine, they begin to trust you as a leader. And one of the really cool things here is there's going to be something that you suck at, right? Like I am very honest about the fact that I suck at data analysis. I can read charts, I love charts, I think they're incredibly useful. But if you want me to pivot tables and stuff like that, you are in for a very sad surprise because it's just not going to go well. I dyslexic, I'm bad with numbers and that doesn't mean I'm not a good manager. It means that I should probably have someone else handle that. So whenever I was managing people and even now when I have to crunch some data of are people opening my emails, am I teaching the things that people care about? I have other people help me with that. You are taking someone on your team and having them handle something that you're not good at and then absolutely praising them to the sky, making it clear that they're handling this, doing a fantastic job. That is a huge win for everyone. And by having people play to their strengths, I'm not talking about overloading your team, I'm just talking about little projects. They can take up two hours of their week but make time for those. It really is what lets everybody shine versus just being in this hamster wheel of reactivity. A really important one. Your team isn't just the CS team now. And that's something that took me quite a while to internalize and it really wasn't good for my career. So you now have two teams in the same way. That CS team was your team. Before you had your peers. Now you have your peers, which is no longer the CS team. Now your peers are other managers, other directors, whatever you've been promoted into. You are part of the cross functional management team. So the people at those same level are probably going to be working cross functionally with you. Those are Your team as well. Those are the people that you're going to help move initiatives forward with now. Because the higher you get promoted, the more you're trying to achieve the goals of the company versus just the goals of your department. That net has to get wider. So find a way to balance making your team successful with making your company successful. It's in the same way that you need to balance the needs of the customer with the needs of the company. And we're in kind of a, uh, different perspective as CS people because initially we're so focused on the needs and wants of the client and we're really the only ones that laser focused on it or who have to deal with it that much, except maybe support. But again, the focus is different. All the other departments are like, okay, we're trying to meet this objective and here's how it connects to the company goals. And there's not that additional factor of like, I have to be the customer champion. And you really do have to balance those two things and you can, you don't have to give the customer every single thing they want. So much of customer success is about setting realistic expectations with the customer and realistic expectations with the organization as to what CS can accomplish on its own. Just like any other department, we need tools, time and people to make a successful department. So those skills that you use, setting expectations for the customer, you're going to need them in leadership as well. Getting your team successful and making the company successful is not necessarily mutually exclusive. The issue is, I see this happen a lot with new leaders. They're so focused on their team, making their team happy. They want to be this beloved leader. And that's great. Again, I will keep saying this even though it's something that I don't like. There is a difference between being liked and being respected. And it's really important that you are going for being respected. And that means sometimes having uncomfortable conversations because of what you know is the right thing. Understanding that you might have a conversation with someone where they're not going to like you for a little bit. And you have to be able to say to yourself, that's okay, I can take it. I really wasn't great at that until I became a parent. And I am, um, in no way saying that I look at direct reports as children or immature or anything like that, but it just showed me a perspective shift that, that, you know, it's going to be okay that someone can dislike you for that moment in time. And it doesn't mean that your relationship is over. There's also a trust aspect to that, that you respect and trust that person enough to be honest and straightforward with them. Not being a jerk, not calling them names, but just saying, hey, this thing, we needed to be here. And what you did in this case did not hit that number. This fell short. Do you have a plan for how you can meet that next time? Would you like some help with that? Or even something a little more serious where it's like, hey, this is something you did wrong. We need for you not to do that again. Those are conversations you're going to have to have. And the more you put them off, the harder it becomes in terms of the whole your team versus your company. I think a lot of times in CS we get caught in wanting to protect our teams. Just remember, as great as it feels to nurture them, you're still at work at a company whose main point is to make money. And if you don't keep that front and center in your mind, you are not going to stay in that role for very long. Ask me how I know. Okay. Um. And look, I made all of these mistakes and many, many others. Guess what? I still had amazing career. I still got promoted over and over. A mistake is not the end of the world. It's how you learn and how you become the leader that you want to be. The important thing is also just how you come back from that mistake. Being able to say, hey, huh, I made a mistake. I'm sorry about that. Here's what won't happen again. This is also a really important thing to say, especially in this current economy and all the CS weirdness right now. But if you get let go from your first leadership position, that does not mean that you are forever doomed to be an individual contributor and that you suck at leadership. Take courses, get mentors, read books on leadership. Heck, I have a CS Leadership Academy. You could go to that. Even if I didn't, I would be saying these things. Uh, the Making of a Manager. Really great book. Dare to Lead by Brene Brown. Excellent book. Both on leadership, not specific to cs. A lot of the stuff on leadership isn't. You'll notice a lot of what I talk about on this podcast isn't specific to cs. And I think that's good. Because if I'm teaching you stuff that only relates to customer success, it might not work well on cross functional peers. Right? So you're dealing with humans. This stuff works on humans, not just CS people. But with the current state of cs, what's happening a lot of the time is people will Hire someone who has not been a leader before to build a team and they haven't had a CS department before, and you haven't built a CS department before. So you are both coming in not with really clear, uh, realistic expectations. Most likely, if that fairly inexperienced CEO says, okay, so I want you to build this department and scale it in six months. Do, uh, you think you can do that? You're probably going to say yes, because you don't have experience with the challenges that are going to come up, and that's not your fault. So if you try and do something that wasn't possible in the first place because you didn't know any better and they didn't know any better, all that means is that you guys didn't know any better. It means nothing about you. Okay? Whenever you start to think, oh, my God, I'm a terrible leader, I'm a terrible boss, ask yourself why? What specifically happened? And, um, why are you making it mean something this much bigger? That's really what I have to say about that. New leadership is tricky. It's hard, it's emotional. It's also really fun when you start nailing things and these things start going well and you start doing better and you see people be empowered and do better. Oh, it feels so amazing. I promise you, it's not all doom and gloom. It's just if you are just starting this and experiencing all these things or hoping to get into leadership and don't know, this might be around the corner for you. I just wanted you to be aware that this is part of the challenge that goes with being a new leader. All right, so that's all I have for you today. Thank you so much for joining me. There will be links in the show notes for everything I talked about today. As usual, if you're interested in leveling up your CS strategy, team leadership and executive presence, make sure to get on that VIP notification list for Customer Success Leadership Academy, so you'll be the first to know when the doors open back up. That's probandsuccess.com CSLA until next time, take care of yourself, get some rest and make sure to share this with your CS bestie. Talk soon. And here's to your success.