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All of 28-32, dynamic and climbing steps two at a time! There is your front line manager of today. Barely a few years into a job, she is promoted to a new role. A role that demands more time, better comprehension, and most importantly, inherent people skills to tackle the everyday challenges of being a manager in the off shoring industry; an industry that is getting older by the day and the managers, younger.
What I convey here is from experience; or I should say lack of experience in handling a team in my twenties. Back in the 90s when I began my work life, although I had similar credentials as today’s youngsters, neither I nor my company could imagine me in the role of managing people at the age of 25. Today, technology has enabled as well as transformed our thoughts significantly. Signing off on promotions of managers in their twenties and early thirties is a common enough occurrence.
What technology has not been able to change though is human nature. The fact that it continues to rule the management art and science is indisputable. It would not be an exaggeration to equate a manager’s responsibility to that of raising a family. Thus, the primary art we equip our first time leaders at Wells Fargo India Solutions with, is that of dealing with the complexities and the sheer accountability of being responsible for another person. During a comprehensive leadership program designed for first time managers, we coach young leaders, to show the way like a parent with a child.
Transition from individual team member to a team leader poses formidable challenges. People managers are responsible for not only planning, conducting and supervising all kinds of business operations but also coordinating the whole group into one productive unit. The sooner they realize that that people management is their responsibility, not that of the human resource department, the better.