At Wasabi Technologies, Julie Barry saw an opportunity to reach the cloud storage provider’s audience more effectively. She wondered: Instead of targeting C-suite executives, why didn’t Wasabi focus its marketing efforts on IT decision-makers in a funny, relatable way?
The new campaign’s first video, dubbed “Migrate with Nate,” was goofy and musical, featuring the catchy refrain, “Nate says migrate before it’s too late!” It was markedly different from past campaigns, Barry said, and some Wasabi executives weren’t immediately sold on the idea.
Barry listened closely to those concerns, but remained committed to her creative vision and ultimately convinced leadership to run the campaign — which paid off in a big way.
“I was able to stay steady, and we launched the campaign to very positive feedback from our customers, partners and the press,” said Barry, who is now Wasabi’s vice president of global brand and communications. “My ability to stay consistent with messaging and preparation with the campaign is what made it so successful.”
Barry is one of 11 Boston women featured below who were promoted from individual contributors to management positions at their companies. Like Barry, many of the leaders accelerated their careers by finding areas for growth within their companies and then volunteering to lead those improvement initiatives.
Time and time again, those interviewed stressed the importance of active listening, clear communication and persuasion skills. Many mastered those abilities by stepping up to own projects outside their immediate responsibilities, receiving and giving mentorship, observing managers and developing their own leadership styles, and collaborating with peers across departments.
“Early in your career, it’s important to sharpen your skill set, grow your expertise, and get exposure to as many different projects, teams and people as possible,” Jillian Cahill, quality assurance manager at Hometap, said. “Treat every challenge as a learning opportunity and always observe the people around you.”
Built In Boston connected with leaders at Wasabi Technologies, Hometap and nine other companies to discuss advice they have for women individual contributors looking to advance to management roles.
At cybersecurity company Rapid7, Customer Success Senior Manager Christina Vincent encourages individual contributors to first ensure personal excellence — by perfecting their job’s requirements and going beyond them — before pursuing management. Once in a manager role, Vincent believes it is important to listen closely and ask thoughtful questions.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
My biggest advice for anyone who is looking to advance and move up in their career is to focus on individual excellence first. Be proactive and focus on time management to ensure you are able to meet the foundational requirements of the job. Be prepared and willing to do the job before you get the job.
Leverage the perspective and experiences you have to challenge convention and offer new ideas and solutions. Showcase the work you are doing and be fearless in celebrating your wins.
Leverage the perspective and experiences you have to challenge convention and offer new ideas and solutions.”
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at Rapid7.
Something I learned early on is that being successful as a leader is built upon being successful as a team. If we work together to understand the mission and understand our goals, all it takes is a strategy and focus to reach those.
Break down your goals into manageable daily and weekly targets and hold each other accountable. I learned that when you work as a team and collectively understand the mission, you build success as a leader through your team. The success is in the collective effort, but it comes down to proper leadership and guidance to help support that. Celebrate wins but also reflect on lessons learned throughout your journey.
You will often find that we learn the most through our failures; leverage that and do not keep them a secret. Share and constantly explore what went wrong so the collective team can benefit from this lesson.
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
To me, the most valuable skill a leader can master is active listening. Listen to your team, customers and broader cross-functional peers to gain a full picture.
Be present and seek to understand before you create a plan. Take notes and follow through so your teams understand you are listening and supporting them. This helps to build trust and foster loyalty.
By allowing myself to talk less and listen more, I gain valuable knowledge and perspective that help me be more informed and confident in my decision-making abilities. Ask clarifying questions and put yourself in the shoes of others. Provide context to those who may share a different perspective or opinion. This will help you in building partnerships and buy-in instead of resistance and frustration.
At Wasabi Technologies, a cloud storage provider, Julie Barry recommends that women individual contributors set goals for themselves and expand their knowledge of industry trends. As vice president of global brand and communications, Barry has learned to not take differences of opinion personally, instead viewing them as opportunities to listen, improve and persuade.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
The most important thing any employee can do is to set goals for themselves. Even if your company doesn’t have a formal review process, sit with your manager and develop three or four goals that you want to achieve that align with the strategic initiatives of the business. These should be six-month goals, and you should report on your progress. One of these goals should be to complete a training program for leaders or managers.
Another great thing to do is to read articles in your industry from thought leaders and influencers. The ability to always improve your knowledge and keep yourself up on the trends in your industry is critical to personal and professional growth.
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at Wasabi Technologies.
At Wasabi, I thought that we could market to and target our audience very differently from other tech companies. It was my opinion that we were spending too much time marketing to the C-suite when we should have been targeting IT decision-makers in a way that resonates with them.
Many IT decision-makers are responsible for taking care of one of their company’s most valuable assets: their data. That being said, many people in their organizations don’t know what they actually do. We set out to define exactly that through our #MigratewithNate campaign.
The original video that launched the campaign was edgy, funny and very different from anything out there. In fact, a couple of members of our executive team weren’t sold on the idea. However, I was able to stay steady, and we launched the campaign to very positive feedback from our customers, partners and the press.
My ability to stay consistent with messaging and preparation for the campaign is what made it so successful that there are now three videos. The most recent one, called #ThinkBeforeYouClick, educates users about the risk of ransomware attacks.
It’s important to be able to hear other people’s opinions, whether you agree with them or not. Then, use your persuasion to sell them on the idea!”
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
The most invaluable skill is mastering your communication skills. This includes the art of persuasion, being a good listener, having empathy and not taking things personally. In marketing, the work can be judged subjectively. Not everyone will like every message or every piece of creative work, and that’s OK.
It’s important to be able to hear other people’s opinions, whether you agree with them or not. Then, use your persuasion to sell them on the idea!
For those looking to advance to leadership, Lauren White urges individual contributors to understand why their work is important and recognize the strengths of their team. White, who is software algorithms lead at defense technology company Anduril, also emphasizes the importance of clearly conveying your vision and listening to customer and team members’ needs.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
The biggest things any individual contributor should understand to prepare for management are how the work you do fits in with the larger picture and why the problems you are working on are important.
Understanding impact and how all the pieces fit together helps frame which problems are worth the time investment both for you and for those working with you. It will help keep your team aligned and motivated.
Along the same lines, seeing and understanding the different strengths of those around you will help keep the right people on the right problems so that your team can work efficiently together.
Seeing and understanding the different strengths of those around you will help keep the right people on the right problems so that your team can work efficiently together.”
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at Anduril.
A moment that accelerated my career was when I suggested a new sensor designed for a tethered unmanned aerial vehicle to my manager.
For the previous five years, I was an individual contributor developing the image processing pipeline for sensors developed within my group. At this point in my career, I had a strong understanding of my field from going to flight tests and listening to sponsor briefs and various tech talks. I started suggesting various potential sensors that I thought would be useful to my manager whenever we had passing conversations, and this was the first idea that stuck.
I ended up working with my manager to get sponsorship for that project and then ran the development of the sensor from prototype to the first deployed sensor, eventually ending up with a patent. The project taught me how to present ideas and gather a team toward a common goal, which influenced the way I manage teams.
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
Communication, which includes active listening. Whether it is conveying the vision of your group, explaining the work that needs to get done or listening to the needs of your customers and employees, being able to clearly explain and interpret information is key.
As a manager, you are responsible for empowering your employees to take ownership of their work and, to do so, you are responsible for communicating the needs of the group in a way that they can easily internalize and rally behind.
For women individual contributors hoping to transition to leadership, Jenn Dillon suggests looking for opportunities to lead projects and collaborate with others. At Rightpoint, a digital consultancy agency where Dillon is the corporate development and integration vice president, Dillon focuses on building trusting relationships with her team to support them through good times and challenges.
What should individual contributors be doing during their careers to prepare for management roles?
Always be on the lookout for opportunities to practice and develop your leadership skills. Being a leader and manager can start well before you’re assigned to those roles. Leading by example can begin at any stage in your career and set you up for success as a manager. You just have to start doing it.
Leading by example can begin at any stage in your career and set you up for success as a manager.”
Look for opportunities to work on challenging projects or volunteer to lead a project. Don’t be afraid to try something new. The experience and knowledge you gain will help you as you progress in your career. I still tap into the knowledge and experiences I gained early in my career as a software developer to help me integrate acquired companies.
Learn to live with ambiguity. Work with and through unknowns, and make decisions based on the knowledge available.
Lean into opportunities to work with others. Find ways to support or teach them, and hone your communication skills. I always think back to the “Platinum Rule” (different from the “Golden Rule”) — treat others as they want to be treated. Learn how your teammates work best and how they like to communicate. This has helped me work with all personality types within every organization I’ve been in.
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at Rightpoint.
I started my career as a software developer and scrum master at a large financial services company. I loved working there, but when my position was relocated, I decided to take a risk and leave, instead joining a small mobile app company called Raizlabs.
I didn’t know much about developing mobile apps, but I did know Agile and scrum processes. Taking my experiences as a scrum master, I was able to pivot from being a software developer to reimagining how Raizlabs would deliver its products to clients. This new position pushed me to lead and try new things. I left the comfort of my old individual contributor position and pushed myself to make decisions and implement change.
This shift put my career on a trajectory that I had never envisioned before. Raizlabs was acquired in 2017 and, based on the operational and change management skills I had developed, I was asked to lead our integration into Rightpoint. Success in that integration positioned me for my current role today, running mergers and acquisitions and integrations across Rightpoint.
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
Relationship building. I believe investing time and effort in people and relationships cultivates a strong team and positions anyone to lead. If your team can trust you and lean on you for support (and vice versa), you can accomplish your individual, team and company goals. This is the essential manager skill.
While companies may make products or deliver services, they’re built on people. Managing in good times is easy; managing through hard times is disproportionately challenging. Being able to lean on your strong interpersonal relationships — knowing what motivates team members and where they need extra support — is the essential ingredient in overcoming adversity and being a strong team leader and manager.
At Definitive Healthcare, a provider of healthcare industry intelligence, Director of Data Analytics Casey Eastlack furthered her career by leading a project establishing service-level agreements between the company’s customer-facing and delivery teams. For other women looking to advance to leadership, Eastlack advises finding ways to improve the company, learn best management practices and mentor others.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
Readiness for a management role typically depends on what an employee does outside of the day-to-day responsibilities outlined in their job description. This can mean something different to everyone, but I think the most important thing is understanding the impact of your role on business goals and appropriately advocating for change to better meet those goals.
A few examples of how to do this include: finding ways to contribute to process improvements, mentoring other employees and learning management best practices. Process improvements can vary drastically, from creating documentation on procedures to evaluating new software for ticketing. The key here is to make sure you don’t stop there and instead come forward with a solution to implement.
Also, the ability to mentor and train other employees is a critical step toward a management role. You can do this by buddying up with new hires, running trainings or volunteering to answer questions. Finding ways to learn about management and leadership outside of work can be beneficial as well. Inquire with your manager or HR department if there are any internal leadership development programs or external resources to leverage.
The ability to mentor and train other employees is a critical step toward a management role.”
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at Definitive Healthcare.
One of the first inter-departmental projects I spearheaded as a manager was establishing a service-level agreement between our customer-facing team and our delivery team in 2019.
Prior to the roll-out of the service-level agreements, there was not a clear understanding of the roles and responsibilities of each member of the two teams, and customer delivery processes were undefined. This was causing some friction among our employees, delaying our turn-around times and, ultimately, affecting our customers negatively.
I resolved these issues by gathering feedback on important topics and setting a biweekly meeting between the leadership of both organizations. We pulled together a document that outlined the role of each team in various situations. I kept our customers and the needs of the organization at the forefront of our discussions and always circled the group back to that goal when there were disagreements.
Spearheading this initiative helped me stand out to other leaders as a key stakeholder in workflow optimization and streamlining interdepartmental communication.
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
The ability to have difficult conversations! A good chunk of management is having tough conversations and giving candid feedback to direct reports or other leaders in the company on a regular basis. Although the content of these conversations typically changes when someone becomes a manager, individual contributors can practice this skill in both their personal and professional lives.
I ensure my feedback is timely, and I employ the Situation-Behavior-Impact model when giving feedback to my direct reports. This involves stating the explicit situation, behavior in question and impact of that behavior. The next time that you need to have a tough conversation with a partner, friend or coworker, try testing it out!
Kateri Osborne advanced in her career at Akeneo, a company that helps brands with product experience management, by taking risks outside her comfort zone. As manager of growth marketing and global campaigns, Osborne recommends that individual contributors vying for promotions work on supporting colleagues outside their immediate teams, welcoming tasks beyond their core responsibilities and listening to team members.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
In my time as an individual contributor, I found three things to be vital when preparing to become a manager. First, support others in the organization outside of your core team and department. Being on a team or supporting a project as a group is just as important as being a leader.
Second, take on responsibilities outside of your job scope to gain perspective. Third, listen to others. Don’t just hear what those around you are saying, but actually listen to others. You can learn so much from your colleagues professionally and personally.
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at Akeneo.
A pivotal moment that accelerated my career happened when I was taking risks and pushing myself outside of my comfort level. By pushing my boundaries, I was able to see how much I could accomplish even when there was the possibility of failure.
With risk comes reward and with failure comes learning. Seize the opportunity to push yourself forward and don’t be afraid of failure.
Know when to speak and when to listen. Know when to give and when to take. Know when to lead and when to support.”
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
Humility. You don’t always need to be the loudest person in the room, the person who speaks the most in meetings or the person who always shares their opinion.
Know when to speak and when to listen. Know when to give and when to take. Know when to lead and when to support.
Aimee Schumaker forged her path to leadership at Flywire, a payments enablement and software company, by volunteering to lead a project exploring a new business line for the company. Schumaker, who is now Flywire’s director of payments strategy and growth, advises individual contributors to become experts on their companies, collaborate with other teams and seek mentorship opportunities.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
Become an expert on your company. In order to progress and grow within your company, you need a solid understanding of how it works. Master this as an individual contributor and it’ll help you be successful as a manager.
People in management roles are responsible for many things, including helping their teams build relationships internally, influencing others to pursue their career goals and, ultimately, helping their teams contribute positively to the business. Get a head start on this as an individual contributor.
Take time to learn what other teams are working on — read their updates, join their Slack channels and schedule coffee chats. Also, understand your company’s high-level priorities and strategic direction, and how your team (and other teams) contributes to those.
Find mentors and mentor others. Sometimes, it’s hard for individual contributors to get out of the weeds and see the bigger picture of their careers. Mentors help you focus on long-term goals and provide unbiased advice on how to get on a path to management. In parallel, it’s great practice to mentor others at any age or role. Seek mentors outside of your organization as well.
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at Flywire.
After a few years of growing strategic partnerships with major credit card schemes at Flywire, I raised my hand to lead a project that explored a new business line for the company. This was something that I had never done before, and it would be a lot of hard work in uncharted territories for me and the company.
Taking on this project helped me stand out because it showed that I was willing to take risks to help the company grow. It also expanded my knowledge of payments, demonstrated that I could be flexible and leverage my skills in different areas of the business, and allowed me to show success in leading a cross-functional team.
Being able to motivate people and drive engagement among others in the company is imperative to being in management.”
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
Motivating others effectively. Being able to motivate people and drive engagement among others in the company is imperative to being in management.
Motivation keeps teams on track and creates a sense of ownership among employees that moves the business forward. To be effective at this, you will need to understand your team. What excites them? What are their strengths and weaknesses? What are their career goals? That understanding will help you engage your team and guide them to operate at their highest capacity.
At Hometap, a fintech company that provides loan alternatives for homeowners, Quality Assurance Manager Jillian Cahill had the exciting and challenging opportunity to build her department from the ground up. Cahill credits learning from managers and mentors, fostering curiosity and reflecting on professional interactions as key contributors to her career success.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
Always be learning! Early in your career, it’s important to sharpen your skill set, grow your expertise and get exposure to as many different projects, teams and people as possible. Treat every challenge as a learning opportunity and always observe the people around you.
I have three pieces of advice I like to share with people who are aspiring to become managers. First, it’s important to learn how your managers and mentors communicate and inspire those around them so you can do the same. Second, being a curious lifelong learner is paramount to your own happiness and success in your career.
Finally, analyze the situations you’re in to reflect on what worked and what didn’t, and take stock of how people interact with each other to collaborate, agree, disagree and make important decisions.
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at Hometap.
Joining Hometap was an extremely exciting and career-defining opportunity for me. Before I came on board, Hometap did not have a quality assurance function, so this was an opportunity to help build something new from the ground up.
Luckily, I did not have to do this alone because I had the help of the other brilliant quality assurance engineers on my team. It’s been an incredible journey for us and an exciting time for the other leaders at Hometap, as they can see the positive changes we’ve made in the past year since we built the quality assurance team.
As a manager, you are your team’s captain in the storm, so it’s important to be able to remain calm and steady.”
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
Build resilience and confidence. As a manager, you are your team’s captain in the storm, so it’s important to be able to remain calm and steady throughout potentially stressful situations or ongoing changes.
Communication and conflict resolution and diffusion are huge parts of this as well; as managers, we are in the people business!
When you are able to positively inspire and impact your team as a leader, it is so rewarding to see this reflected in their spirit and growth. In order to project this inspiration and hope, we need to remain strong and confident in ourselves.
At Stavvy, a digital mortgage platform for real estate professionals, Marketing Vice President Alison Arthur acknowledges that management may not be for everyone, so she first advises individual contributors to reflect on why they want to lead people. From there, if a leadership role aligns with the individual contributor’s career aspirations and strengths, Arthur suggests seeking mentorship from effective managers and developing strong active listening skills.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
Start by asking yourself if you want to manage people. If so, why?
Oftentimes, there is a belief that career advancement is only possible if you take a people management role. However, management is not for everyone, and some professionals are better served as individual contributors. Consider your interests, strengths and long-term goals to determine if a management role complements your career aspirations.
If you’d like to explore management, start by identifying effective managers within your professional network. Observe closely what makes them successful. What is their style? Are they hands-on or hands-off? How do they inspire those around them to do their best work? What is their approach to dealing with conflict?
Establish mentorships with these leaders and use those interactions to inform your management style. I can quote verbatim the profound advice that various managers gave me throughout my career that resonates to this day. Start collecting and banking this information to help form your own management style.
Consider your interests, strengths and long-term goals to determine if a management role complements your career aspirations.”
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader.
In a previous role, I was selected to represent my company in a women-focused industry group. Our membership evolved into an opportunity to establish a Boston-based chapter of the organization.
I was part of the working group that launched the Boston chapter during the pandemic, which presented its own unique challenges and rewards. In addition to helping me stand out as a leader at my company, it also brought visibility to accomplished women professionals in the Boston area and created connections to the benefit of members nationwide.
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
Active listening. This means being present and engaged in conversations with your direct reports and constituents throughout your organization. In addition to what is said out loud, observe body language and subtle cues to sharpen your awareness of what is being communicated.
I believe that, more so than anything else, people want to be heard. They want to know that they have a voice. Great managers synthesize the information they gather through active listening and partner with direct reports to create a working environment optimized for success.
Mary Bergeron does not wait for an invitation to solve problems at Kyruus, a software company that helps healthcare organizations search for and schedule providers. Bergeron, who is the director of product management, encourages women individual contributors aiming for leadership positions to develop their skill sets and inform mentors and managers about their career aspirations.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
Start by observing and learning. I began by simply taking note of which people management styles resonated with me. Which styles got the best results? What did I like or dislike? I did a lot of independent work as well, including reading books and taking classes. My learning has never stopped, by the way! I’m always on the hunt for new techniques to inform my people management approach.
I then found small ways to develop my skills, including mentoring new team members, having summer interns report to me and running cross-functional initiatives in which teammates reported to me informally. I was able to grow my skills even when no formal people management opportunities were available.
At my current company, I started out as an individual contributor, but I let my manager and mentors know that I wanted a people manager role. I also asked my manager for feedback in case there were skills they felt I should improve before becoming a people manager. Ultimately, my interest in people management was well-documented, and I built a group of leaders that helped me on my journey to my current role.
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at Kyruus.
Most recently, I revamped a few processes, such as the way we review our roadmap with stakeholders and how we triage high-priority customer issues. I got buy-in from the appropriate teams, gathered a lot of feedback and created proposals for how to move forward.
At first, I worried that I was overstepping, but I ultimately found that many of my colleagues were receptive to exploring changes in these areas. I built new relationships that I might not have through my typical day to day and learned new skills. It was a great reminder that I don’t need to wait for permission or an invitation to solve problems.
When I succeed as a leader, it can usually be tied back to clear communication that allowed everyone to do their job effectively.”
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
The skill that has helped me the most is the ability to communicate effectively across a wide variety of mediums and audiences. In my role as director of product management, I’m required to communicate expectations to my team, a compelling vision to customers, complex plans to stakeholders and more.
When I find myself falling short as a leader or manager, it is often because I did not communicate effectively. When I succeed as a leader, it can usually be tied back to clear communication that allowed everyone to do their job effectively. It’s a skill that I continually hone by taking public speaking classes, researching communication styles and templates and regularly asking for feedback. Given the work that I put in, I have been trusted with many opportunities to lead large cross-company initiatives and present at industry events.
I encourage everyone to develop their voice and style as a leader. Experiment with different ways of leading a meeting, structuring a presentation, discussing a new topic with your team or giving feedback. Learn what works best for you and what fits best within the culture of your team and company.
At iZotope, an intelligent audio technology provider, Emily Ferola recalls a key experience that fueled her career growth — when she stepped up to become the product owner for a new development team. Now a manager of software quality assurance, Ferola encourages women individual contributors to expand their organizational contributions beyond their roles’ responsibilities, while also being mindful of personal capacity limits.
What should individual contributors do during their careers to prepare for management roles?
Think outside of strictly serving your own success and career progression. More broadly, look at the success of your team and your own success as one and the same. Finding opportunities to contribute to that success can take so many different forms depending on the projects you work on, the people you interact with, and the challenges you face (both individually and as a group).
The ability to context-switch and see beyond your own to-do list effectively will benefit you but it takes some practice. When you have opportunities to take on additional responsibilities, don’t forget your own capacity limits and don’t burn yourself out in service of proving that you can lead.
I’ve learned my limits through many periods of over-commitment and long work days, but I’ve become far more effective at managing my time with the guidance of managers and by becoming more comfortable delegating and prioritizing work. Improving how you manage your own workload will be very helpful when guiding your team through similar challenges.
Share a moment in which you did something that accelerated your career and helped you stand out as a leader at iZotope.
Each team, project and problem that I’ve worked on has given me the opportunity to develop leadership skills and grow in incremental ways. One example that stands out to me the most was a couple of years ago when I volunteered to be the product owner for a new development team that we were piloting.
The team, named “Pit Crew” by one of its inaugural members, is focused on responding to customer-reported issues and maintenance-related work that affects multiple products. The staffing of the team is unique, with the development and quality assurance teams rotating on and off of Pit Crew periodically. I’m the only member of the team that doesn’t rotate off.
Being the only anchored member of the team and being responsible for making sure we are always moving forward have been exciting challenges for me. I’m given the space and trust to do high-quality work with a rotating cast of immensely talented team members.
Finding opportunities to mentor and coach your peers can go a long way in helping build the interpersonal skill set needed for being an effective manager.”
What is the number one skill a person should cultivate if they’d like to move into management?
There isn’t one specific skill to master that will serve as the “golden ticket” into management, but there are certain sets of skills that will help you. My personal transition into management wasn’t something that I had been preparing for specifically; it was more of a natural progression.
There are a number of interpersonal skills that are important for anyone working with teams of people but can take on new importance in a management role. Managers help represent and maintain the work culture of a team as much as an individual contributor — interpersonal skills play a big role in that.
Everyone has their own ways of working, and how a manager approaches understanding, relating to and coaching each individual has a major impact on that relationship. Finding opportunities to mentor and coach your peers can go a long way in helping build the interpersonal skill set needed for being an effective manager.
