✅ Today’s checklist:
🤔 Riddle me this: What has ten letters and starts with gas? (Find the answer on the bottom).
🗓️ Upcoming Event: Join us this Thurs 9/26 at 2PM PT for a free webinar where an expert EA spills her best tips to streamline business travel. Register here.
😣 Stress: Difficult conversations got you tense? Make sure you’re not falling into these common mistakes.
📧 Work/Life: Read this the next time you think checking work emails after hours is a good idea.
🤝 Collaboration: Why we should all agree to stop and think before making random requests throughout the day.
🗣️ Communication: HR-approved tips for handling workplace political discussions.
1 – The United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee’s strategy for personal branding that starts at the roots—with a personal narrative.
2 – A ground rule from the founder of Be Fearless Inc: find your niche and your “why”.
3 – A biopharma executive’s commitment to bringing value to others.
4 – Follow Mark Manson’s lead by mastering the art of committing to a crystal-clear persona and never deviating from it.
5 – Martha Stewart’s decades-long master class in being both perfectly adaptive and perfectly consistent.
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One TA reader feels a little nervous to be stepping out of their bossy pants: I’m transitioning to a new role in a different business and going from being a manager of managers to an individual contributor and I’m nervous!
Nervousness is a natural part of any big life change, and transitioning out of a managerial role absolutely qualifies as a big life change.
So while your nervousness is natural and expected, you might be able to convert some—maybe even most of it—into excitement.
“Fear is excitement without the breath.”
This quote is popularly attributed to German psychotherapist Fritz Perls. Whether he said or wrote these words doesn’t matter as much as their kernel of timeless truth. The anxiety so often perceived as a negative mental state is cut from the same cloth as the excitement so often perceived as a positive mental state.
It’s theoretically possible to gradually ease yourself into feeling more excited than nervous about the big change and all the uncertainties it brings.
Here’s a validating quote from a more contemporary source: “Anxiety and excitement feel the same, but how we interpret and label them can determine how we experience them.” (Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience)
That’s what converting your nerves into excitement requires—just a slight shift in how you consider, interpret, and label what’s coming next.
Think about the benefits that come with the shift instead of the perceived losses and setbacks.
Start by coming up with a list of at least 10 compelling pros that come along with the shift. What are you excited to do more of? Or on the flip side, what are you excited to do less of?
“Though it might seem like a step back, there can be significant benefits to your personal fulfillment as well as your organization if you choose to become an individual contributor again,” write the career experts at HBR.
“When you look at your move back to being an individual contributor as a re-entry that allows you to bring new life experiences and skills to improve your offering, you’ll have an easier time embracing and explaining it.”
Read more from Stackoverflow’s How to land the manager-to-IC pivot.
Be proactive with your new manager to avoid speed bumps.
Managerial roles come with complex challenges, demands, and expectations. So do individual contributor roles.
While a management position may be a few steps above an individual contributor position in the organization chart, their overall difficulty or challenge scores may be identical or very close. Some former managers fall into the trap of assuming anything will be a piece of cake after managing.
Schedule time to discuss performance expectations in detail with your new manager. Be candid about any areas you’re concerned about due to lack of recent practice or experience. For example, if you used to be a developer but have been primarily managing teams of developers for the last few years, your re-learning curve might be oddly shaped.
By discussing these potentially sticky areas with your new manager now, you might avoid unnecessary tension and stress later.
Read more from BuiltIn’s A Guide to Transitioning From Manager to Individual Contributor.
Remember that you can be an influential leader without your old manager title.
“Some people might argue that the work of individual contributors won’t scale,” write the career experts at HBR. “They think managers have more impact because they have many direct reports executing on their strategic goals. You’ll need to challenge those assumptions.”
Sure, it takes extensive skills and experience to influence colleagues organically rather than leaning on hierarchy, but we know you have that.
“Just because you’ve hopped away from management doesn’t mean that you can’t have influence,” affirms a former manager writing for LeadDev. “In fact, I have observed quite the opposite: the exact skillset you nurtured as a manager can transfer over quite nicely to your new role as a senior individual contributor.”
Building consensus, listening actively, and advocating for others are among the most readily transferable skills the former manager discusses bringing back to an individual contributor role in her LeadDev article.
Read more from HBR’s You Can Stop Being a Manager Without Sinking Your Career.
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“Don’t just follow your passion, follow your curiosity and be adaptable.”
Passion is important but curiosity drives learning and growth. Being adaptable allows you to navigate changes over time. This advice helps me to stay resilient and relevant.
Kavya Gorrepati (Senior Software Systems Engineer)
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