I'm Managing My Former Peers. Now What?

You just got promoted. Congratulations. You're now managing people who were your equals last week.

Here's what nobody tells you: the hardest part isn't managing your former peers. It's that you haven't stopped being their peer yet.

The Problem Isn't Your Old Relationships

Most advice about managing former peers focuses on "establishing authority" or "setting boundaries." That's not wrong, but it misses the real issue.

The problem is you're still thinking like a peer.

You still wait for consensus before making calls. You still answer every question directly instead of asking why they're asking. You still treat decisions like group projects instead of your job.

Your team isn't confused about the org chart. They're confused because you are.

What It's NOT

It's not treating everyone the same. You think fairness means acting like nothing changed. It doesn't. Your friend who struggles with deadlines needs different management than your friend who doesn't. Pretending otherwise isn't fair. It's avoidance.

It's not being "one of the team." You're not. You can be respected, trusted, even liked. But you make decisions about their work, their performance, their careers. That's not a peer relationship, and pretending it is makes you a bad manager and a worse friend.

It's not avoiding hard conversations because you know their situation. You know Sarah's going through a divorce. That context matters. But if her work is suffering, knowing why doesn't mean you don't address it. It means you do it with more care, not less accountability.

The Wake-Up Call

I realized I was failing six months in.

We were in San Francisco for a work trip. Five of us. We finished a meeting and headed out to find lunch.

They followed me down the street. Through intersections. Around corners.

I had no idea where I was going. I walked us in a complete circle.

Nobody questioned it. Nobody said "hey, where are we actually going?" They just followed.

That's when it hit me: they were waiting for me to decide. Not because I knew San Francisco. Because I was their manager.

And I had been avoiding exactly that for six months.

What I Was Actually Avoiding

Not big strategic decisions. Everyday stuff.

Which direction do we go? What do we prioritize? How do we handle this? When do we push back?

I thought I was being collaborative. I was waiting for consensus. Asking for input. Letting the team weigh in.

What I was actually doing: avoiding my job.

The team missed sprint goals. Multiple sprints. Because I wouldn't make the call on what mattered and what didn't. I treated every question like a discussion instead of a decision point.

Someone would ask "should we do X or Y?" and I'd answer the question. Give them the information. Solve their problem.

I should have been asking "why are you asking?" and "what do you think?" and "what's the actual goal here?"

I wasn't guiding. I was just another peer with slightly more context.

The First Real Decision

I changed our sprints from two weeks to one week.

Our business was prototyping. Rapid iteration. The business couldn't wait two weeks for feedback. Neither could we.

The team pushed back. One week felt too fast. Too much overhead. Too chaotic.

I made the call anyway.

It was rough at first. But it worked. The business saw us as more responsive. We got better at breaking down work. We had more flexibility.

More importantly, I stopped apologizing for making the decision. I owned it.

What Changed

I stopped thinking my job was to make decisions.

My job is to create an environment where my team can make decisions.

Now when someone asks me a question, I don't just answer it. I ask what they're trying to solve. I give them context about why we're doing the work and what success looks like. Then I let them figure it out.

I make the decisions they can't make. The trade-offs between competing priorities. The calls that need manager-level context or authority.

But I don't make their decisions for them. That's not management. That's bottlenecking.

The Mistake I Made

I got promoted to manage my team. I thought staying collaborative meant avoiding decisions.

It didn't.

They didn't need me to be their peer. They needed me to be their manager. To make calls when calls needed making. To give them clarity so they could make their own calls.

The people who respected me most weren't the ones I tried to keep happy by avoiding decisions. They were the ones I gave clear direction, held accountable, and trusted to do their jobs.

What to Do Monday

Look at your last week. Find the decisions you avoided.

The question you answered directly instead of coaching through. The priority call you waited for consensus on. The direction you didn't give because you thought it would feel too "manager-y."

Pick one. Make the call. Give the clarity. Stop waiting.

You're not their peer anymore. Start acting like their manager.

Because when you start acting like their manager, they can finally start acting like your team.

Leadership starts when you stop waiting for consensus and start creating clarity.

You're great at the work. If you're ready to make it visible, let's talk. jessestaffordcoaching.com