You were promoted for being the best adjuster in the room.
Nobody told you that’s a completely different job. The skills that made you exceptional — owning every detail, being the one who gets it done — are the exact skills that will make you a mediocre manager, and a miserable one.
Three signs you’re in it.
You’re still working files
Files you should have delegated. And you’re telling yourself it’s faster this way.
Your team brings you problems
Not solutions. Because you always solve them, so they’ve stopped trying.
You feel like a fraud
And you can’t tell anyone, because you’re supposed to be the expert.
If you recognised any of those: it isn’t a character flaw. It’s a training failure — and it isn’t yours.
Want your organization to pay for this?
Most people read this on their own time and pay out of their own pocket. That’s backwards — it’s exactly what a training budget is for. We’ll give you the memo to send your director. Fill in two blanks.
Read one book, or book twenty minutes.
Both are cheap. One costs you the price of lunch. The other costs you a slot in your calendar. Neither commits you to anything.
