I often meet people who are hesitant to move into a people manager role. „I need training first“, they say. And that is right and not right, I believe.
Training is great. If a good leadership trainer gives you insights into general psychology, offers you some tools on how to communicate with your employees or helps you deal with difficult relationships — that is so helpful.
But training can never compensate for missing interest and passion about people. If you believe that choosing the most competent person from your team (competent in what?), promoting them to be the people manager of the team, and sending them to leadership trainings on a regular basis would suffice — you might be wrong.
Everything in life can be learned. Some learn quicker than others (for various reasons), but one important prerequisite is always real interest. If you are truly interested in a topic, you will find a way to learn more about it.
With regard to leadership, this could be that you observe people’s behavior, that you listen to other leaders’ experiences, that you read about leadership, that you try to interact and therefore practice whenever possible and that you remain open for contrasting views and changing environments.
Special leadership trainings can be an additional compressed source to broaden your knowledge, but no two-day or one-week program can suffice for dealing with your employees successfully on a daily basis, if you neglect or downplay the people management part in general. Just like partnership is hard work on a daily basis, so is leading a team. With ups and downs.
This is very superficial, but in general I would state:
Love people + take communication seriously = you will be fine
Another thought on becoming a leader: Some are hesistant because deep down they feel that they love their job, but are not passionate about leading people. They are told or might think for themselves that growing the career ladder automatically has to include people management.
In companies which value good leadership and diversity, this is definitely not the case. As an true expert without people management, you can always grow by becoming more expert than before or by broadening your skills. And this is not less important for a company than a good people manager and should be rewarded equally. It is just a different type of career.
I know many leaders who struggle with their role, because they intentionally or subconsciously avoid the people management tasks and focus on what they love, their expertise. This often creates frustration on their end and also on the employer’s end. It is just not the best match possible.
Is it possible to switch back and forth between a people manager role and an expert role? Everything is possible if you truly want it. Of course, it also depends on the environment. In general, I would recommend to focus on your strengths. Many people have a tendency towards either leadership or expertism. Take that seriously. Then, changes between the two roles are possible, but the more often you change the less you will be a real expert in your field.
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