Becoming a Manager

3

Moving Toward a Managerial Identity

From the sixth month to the ninth, most of the new managers began to focus more fully on their bosses’ interests. They had managed conflicts with their subordinates (therefore, they no longer overidentified with the subordinates) and had been on the job long enough to have some results for which they felt accountable. They had gone through a business cycle (at least quarterly results were in) and had discussed their performance with their bosses. (Some had formal reviews, but most had only informal ones.) Many said the honeymoon was over. The lessons of what it meant to be the formal authority were coming home to roost. They began to accept their agendasetting and network-building responsibilities and to ...