What Stops Us From Transitioning Into A Leadership Role

Interview with Jean Hsu Engineering Leadership Coach

Poornima Vijayashanker, Founder of Femgineer (left) and Jean Hsu Engineering Leadership Coach (right)

Have you been in your current role for a while, and are eager to try something new?

Perhaps you’ve thought about transitioning from being an individual contributor into a leadership role, but you’re not sure if it’s the right move for you?

You worry about being qualified enough, leading people, being an authority figure, and what your day-to-day will be like.

While it sounds exciting and maybe a great opportunity to grow, you worry about your existing skills getting rusty.

Well, all this month on Build we’re going to be exploring the tradeoffs that aren’t talked about when we choose to transition from being an individual contributor to a leader. In today’s episode, I’ve invited Jean Hsu who was formerly an Engineering Manager at Medium and is now an Engineering Leadership Coach.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this episode:

• Why our perception of who or what we think it takes to be in a role is often wrong, and why we are more capable of learning and growing in a new role than we realize
• When it comes to leadership, it’s OK to take time to discover your own style
• Why the comfort and well-defined nature of our current role makes a transition harder and make us feel less accomplished in the beginning

In the episode Jean mentions the book: The Manager’s Path, check it out here.

Once you’ve watched today’s episode, Jean and I would like to know: have you recently done a transition maybe from being an individual contributor to a manager or a leader? What were some of the concerns you had, and how did you go about handling that transition? Let us know in the comments below.

Listen to the episode on iTunes!

You can listen to this episode of Build on iTunes.

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Check out these additional resources on leadership:

• How Creators Can Become Company Leaders
• How To Create A Leadership Style That Blends With Your Personality
• How To Nurture A Team of Top Performers
• How To Make Smart Tradeoffs When Building Software Products

Build is produced as a partnership between Femgineer and Pivotal Tracker. San Francisco video production by StartMotionMEDIA.