Successful Transitioning from an Individual Contributor to a Supervisor Role

The time has come. You were an employee in an organization and now you are being promoted to a supervisory position. How can you make the jump from one role to the other and still be successful? As a supervisor you now have more roles and responsibilities, some of which include:

• Being responsible for the performance of others, as well as your own
• Acting as a coach for the employees
• Maintaining/improving the interpersonal and technical skills that you had as an individual contributor
• Getting work done though other people; delegating work to others and making sure they have everything they need to complete it on time

As an individual contributor you probably had your group of friends. Now you may have to supervise that same group. It will be hard to say “No.” to friends when they ask for favors, but you must learn how to do this – and at them same time gain and maintain the respect of your team.

Training programs help an employee’s gain the skills needed to transition effectively into a supervisor role. But while delegation, goal setting, and coaching skills can be learned, the transition to a supervisory role is also about a mindset change. The new supervisor must sop thinking of themselves as “one of the gang” and start thinking of themselves as someone with authority over the “gang”. Many new supervisors find it difficult to make this mindset transition – and some fail to make it at all. An experienced mentor or coach can provide guidance to help the new supervisor move to this new way of thinking.