Show Notes
You got promoted, and the people you are leading now are the same people you used to grab lunch with, complain about the boss with, and text on the weekends. The group text got quiet. Somebody looked at you a little different halfway through a joke. And you are wondering whether you are still one of them, or the boss now. You are both. That is the hard part.
When you get promoted over your friends, the title changes overnight and the relationships do not. Most new managers handle it one of two ways. They pretend nothing changed, or they go cold overnight. Both fail for the same reason: they let the title do the work.
Harvard Business School professor Linda Hill has studied what happens to people in their first year as a manager. One of the biggest myths she found is that new managers believe their authority comes from the position. It does not. It comes from credibility: character, competence, and whether people trust you to do the right thing. Your friends already know who you are. What they do not know yet is what kind of boss you are going to be.
In this episode John Espinosa walks through The New Seat, three moves for leading the people who used to be your friends.
ONE. NAME THE WEIRD.
Sit down one on one with every former peer this week. Here is what is not changing. Here is what is. And I am going to make the calls the same way for everybody, including you. Then ask what they need from you. Start with the person who wanted the job.
TWO. CLOSE THE BACK CHANNEL.
From the new seat, venting up turns into undermining, sharing what you know turns friends into insiders, and extra access looks like favorites. Keep the friendship. Quit the back channel.
THREE. PASS THE FIRST TEST.
Somebody will test the new line, usually in the first month. Do not go easy and do not overcorrect. Ask whether you would handle it the same way with anybody else on the team, handle it privately, and then go back to normal.
This is first time manager leadership at the point where it shapes your whole team: not whether you stay friends, but whether everybody knows where they stand. ------------------------------- Get my coaching frameworks behind the scenes. One idea and one small shift to your inbox every week. Start here: https://www.thejohnespinosa.com/start-here
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