How to Handle Internal Promotion with Coworkers?

olaHalo

I am about to get a promotion to manager of about 15 guys at my current company. I will be going from being a coworker/equal to being their superior. Many of us are friends. And I am also in my 20s while everyone else is 30-55 yrs old.

I am curious on how to smoothly transition from being a coworker to being a boss.
All my previous career moves involved me switching companies, so I did not have this problem. This time I am not sure how the relationships will be changed and how to coworkers will react.
Any insight would be helpful.

Trucido

As long as they respect you, there would really be no problems. If they get upset, thats a sign they do not value you as much as whoever promoted you did. I would say in that case you may need to prove you're still on their team but you cannot let things slide just because they are your friends. I would highly recommend some reading on leadership. This happened to me and my GF at the time ended up taking my suggestions/QA'ing of her wrong because she did not respect me, which ended up getting us both fired.

MAC_Addy

Don't gloat/boast your promotion.

EANx

The hardest part will be to start distancing yourself from them on a professional level. I'm sure you have a certain amount of camaraderie with them but as their boss, you do have to back away from the "buddy-buddy" piece you have had. That doesn't mean you can't be social and goofy but it does mean that you shouldn't try to inject yourself into activities as "one of the guys". Lunch can be hard, when everyone talks about going to X for lunch and didn't invite you when you used to often go.

I think that hardest pat at first would be any challenges to your authority, you need to nip them in the bud quickly but in a highly professional manner. As a new supervisor (I dislike the term "superior"and recommend you strike it from your vocabulary), you're likely to get challenged quickly: "what happened to you, you used to be cool" and "look at him throwing his weight around now that he's Mr. Boss Man." The best way to approach these is to know they are likely to happen at some time so you need to have a plan. You should already have a private discussion area in mind, your office is best if you have a door but if you're in a cube yourself, find out if HR has a room with a door that can be used on short notice for a discussion like that. Ask your new boss or a manager in HR, not the cute girl just brought in to handle the 401k. If/when that challenge occurs, you don't argue or even respond to the challenge other than to say "<name>, would you mind coming with me, please?" and walk to your designated place without waiting for a response. You've just flipped into supervisor mode and good bosses don't hold discussions like this in public.

Lexluethar

It's going to be hard, it's a tough line to walk being a friend and a manager. It can be done but requires you and your subordinates to have a mutual respect for each other.

There will be haters as there always is, be polite, professional and you will succeed. I agree with the above, you are going to have to pull back on some of those personal relationships to be an effective manager.