Alastair Wallace advises newly promoted managers on shifting from peer to boss. Reset the relationship by clearly communicating your changed role, maintain warmth while enforcing standards consistently, and avoid any hint of favouritism. Inconsistency will disrupt the team.
Can you be their mate and their manager? I've trained hundreds of new managers who get this balance wrong, and it creates a lot of tension with other colleagues about favouritism. Managing your friend can be a bit brutal when you've been promoted from within the team. Yesterday you were part of the jokes and the fun. Today you're responsible for the boring stuff— standards, reports, decisions that people don't like. Now, you don't need to become someone else, some weird cold robot manager. But you do need to reset the contract just a little bit. Give this a try. So we can work together smoothly, I need to be clear that my role's changed a bit now. I'm still going to support you, of course, but also I need to hold expectations fairly across the team. That works because it protects warmth but without creating favouritism. Friendly is fine. Inconsistency is the road to disruption. If you want the words for more awkward manager conversations just like this one, you need to grab my free Say This First guide. I'll put it with this post for you.
