Becoming a Manager

9

Easing the Transformation

With this study we have had a rare glimpse into the subjective experience of becoming a manager and proposed a framework for understanding that very complex transition. The new managers provided surprisingly consistent accounts of their first year as managers and from those we have extracted two themes:

1. Becoming a manager required a profound psychological adjustment—a transformation. Some transitions are changes that keep an individual on a fixed career track, like the pilot’s minor adjustments in heading an airplane to maintain a steady course. Others—like the promotion to management—are turning points shifting the entire balance and direction of one’s career, like the pilot’s submitting a new flight plan when ...