In the fast-paced world today, it is not uncommon to see individual contributors being promoted to managerial role with barely any preparation. No doubt in the absence of formal training, the leap can sometimes be intimidating. At this particular juncture, there are multiple contradicting schools of thought. One school puts forward the argument that each individual manager should actually build their own skills. If people aspire for managerial positions, they should ready themselves. While the another school counters it with the hard-hitting fact that the growth of the company goes hand-in-hand with the growth of its people. If the organization is targeting to strengthen its core employee base, it needs to first equip its frontline managerial champions with the right capabilities to act as primary guides. A 2014 survey of Gallup shows that managers account for at least 70% of variance in employee engagement scores across business units. This variation is in turn responsible for severely low worldwide employee engagement. Obviously the impact is huge!

So what really changes? What hinders the smooth transitioning of roles? The answer is hidden in the basics of how the roles are described and what expectations are set from the employee. An individual contributor (IC), as the name implies, is a professional employee without management duties who works independently in support of an organization’s objectives and mission. Being in charge of people is indeed a big step up from being a solo contributor. What helped the employees succeed as individuals may not help them succeed as managers. They will need to unlearn and relearn former skills and adopt the mindset of a manager.