Episode 10 - You Got Promoted, But No One Listens to You. Here's Why.

Transcript

 So congratulations, you've been promoted! But unfortunately, you are feeling like nobody is listening to you. You may be thinking, why am I the only one who's taking this work seriously?

It's important that you understand - you're not being ignored because you're doing something wrong. You're being ignored because no one has ever shown you how to make leadership land, especially when you promote from within.

And it doesn't matter if you're a frontline supervisor or higher on the agency org chart. Nobody ever teaches someone how to promote and supervise their former co-workers. I know I never learned it. I've never heard anyone even talk about it. But in our amazing field that is famous for promoting from within, this is a big problem.

Hello and welcome to Provider Power with your host, Sara Sherman. This is the place for IDD leaders to find solutions, support, and insights. Ready to power up your provider game? Let's get started.

All right, so you've been promoted and nobody is listening and you are feeling so frustrated. And that makes sense because - my gosh - you just got the promotion! You were so excited. More money, better ability to meet your own financial needs, maybe to support your family. Maybe you can get rid of that second job. And authority. Being a supervisor implies that you have expertise. And let's be serious - that feels good. And it should.

Management sees you, trusts you, and my gosh, you are so ready to lead. You've been watching supervisors make mistakes for what feels like forever, thinking this whole time, "If I were just in charge, I would do things differently and I would get better results."

But now you're in that position. Now you are the supervisor. Now you are the manager. And nothing is changing. Your staff - they're still doing things their way. In fact, they seem to think that they can do more of their way now that you're in charge.

You repeat yourself constantly. You beg, you plead, and you're beginning to get a little concerned for your job because - does it look like you're failing as much as it feels like you're failing?

You're now accountable for everything, but you're not feeling like you're in charge of anything. You're questioning yourself:

Am I being too picky?

Am I missing something here?

Do I not even know what I'm doing?

Why isn't anybody listening?

And then the big question comes: Can I even do this job? Was this whole thing a mistake? Would it be better if I stepped down?

Well, the good news is - yes, yes, you can do this job. You just need a few tweaks and a little bit of insider information.

One of the things that I think is so beautiful about our field - I mean, this is just cultural, it's nationwide, and it's fantastic - is that we promote from within. I mean, we're nearly feverish about promoting from within. Every time I work with an agency, for the most part, they say they prefer to promote from within.

We are so intent on promoting from within that in some states, agencies have actually added career degree requirements, or at the very least years of experience requirements, to be certain that people know what they're doing. Now hold on to that thought and I'll come back to it in a minute.

And why? Again, because we are so quick to empower - or shove - people up the responsibility ladder. And that is one of the most amazing concepts in our field. Do well, grow, and be exposed to a full smorgasbord of career paths, depending on the size of the agency where you're working.

Yet despite all of this, we spend zero - zero - minutes teaching people how to manage and lead their former coworkers. And that is a whole different animal than coming in from the outside.

And I think that this is one of the reasons that states are beginning to intervene and establish degree and/or experience requirements for certain positions, because they see compliance problems. And they're assuming it's because people aren't knowledgeable enough to do the job.

Now in some cases, is that true? Probably. But in other cases - I would say the majority of cases - it's simply because the management transition is very different when you rise up within an organization than when you come from the outside. I say that to you having done it both ways, and working with so many organizations over so many years, I have seen a very clear pattern. This is why setting those education and years of experience requirements are not fixing all of the problems.

Alright, so let's look at problems that one might see when a supervisor has not transitioned into that supervisor role effectively. And I'm not saying this is the supervisor's fault. Let's just look at the barriers to success that a new supervisor has to manage.

And one more time - it doesn't matter if they're a frontline supervisor, a middle management supervisor, or a CEO. When you promote from within, there are some inherent problems that don't happen when you come from the outside.

In my frontline supervisor training, I talk about this as the boss-friend line. And here are the problems that you can see that might have the cause and contributing factor being that someone has promoted from within without proper support to manage that transition:

Inconsistency. Of course you'll see inconsistency, right? Some staff are doing what they want to be doing. They're doing it their own way. They feel freer to do that than they might from somebody who comes from the outside, because they know this person. They're familiar with this person. Consequently, compliance is rather out the window.

Low team morale. A team that has one person plucked from it who now becomes the supervisor of the team can elicit all the feels. Maybe there are others on that team who applied for the job and didn't get it. Maybe there are people who would have applied for the job if they felt like the bar was so low - this person actually got the job, I certainly would have gotten the job - and now they're kicking themselves because they didn't try. And they feel like they're stuck with what they perceive to be an inferior supervisor as a result of their lack of action.

Lack of trust. If you as a worker made mistakes, didn't do things correctly, or were inconsistent, then your team is going to feel concerned. They're not going to trust you as a leader. "This person doesn't know what they're doing regularly. How can I trust them to lead me and not feel like mistakes are going to happen and I'm going to be blamed for those mistakes?"

By-the-Book Becky. Or maybe you're what we called, when I was at Wendy's, a "By-the-Book Becky." Becky was a manager who did everything absolutely perfectly per regulation every single time. If you had to pay for half of your meal when you took a break, Becky was going to charge you for half of your meal. If you walked by the french fry bin and you snagged a french fry, Becky was going to bust you for that. If you have a staff person who tends to push the boundaries - or maybe completely ignore the boundaries of expectations - and you are a By-the-Book Becky or a By-the-Book Bob, then your staff are going to have some feelings about that.

Favoritism concerns. Maybe your team is concerned that you're going to play favorites. When you worked amongst the team, there were people that you liked and didn't like. There were people that you hung out with more than others. Maybe you worked with people that you went to school with since kindergarten and you have such a shared history. Now you're the supervisor. The rest of the team is going to feel some concerns about that. Are they going to get the support they need? If they have a problem with one of your friends, is that going to be addressed correctly? If one of your friends doesn't work correctly, are you going to identify that? Are you only going to call out the people that you aren't as close to?

Which then makes it very difficult to address performance problems. If people feel like you have a bias - or people want you to have a bias - that is going to impact your ability to correct performance problems, to set expectations, to train on new material. All of it will be impacted.

Of course that creates challenges to compliance and quality, and it creates conditional friendships where you aren't in charge but you're responsible. And what that means is you may be holding a friend hostage - or they may feel like you're holding them hostage.

"You're my friend, so of course you're going to do all the work I ask you to do."

Or it could reverse:

"I'm your friend. What do you mean I have to be here on time? I'm your friend. Of course you're going to let me leave early. I'm your friend. You're not going to say too much if my documentation is late - because I'm your friend."

And that's a very conditional situation, and it puts a lot of pressure on the supervisor because they feel like they have to capitulate in order to maintain the relationship - and this is a person that they care about. They've had a relationship with, and they would like to keep that relationship.

All of this can add up to putting a supervisor in a position where their work performance and their employment is challenged. None of that feels very good.

Okay, so what are you going to do about it? Let's get into those tips so that you can fix the situation. But first, a word from today's sponsor.

Today's sponsor is my free masterclass, From Lazy Staff to High Performers. It's on April 23rd at 1 p.m. Eastern.

If you feel like your staff are not performing because they're just lazy and you have no idea how to remedy that situation, this free masterclass is for you. In one hour, I will give you the tools that you need so that you can recognize exactly what is going on and you have a clear plan for taking the steps necessary to correct the problem. I'll even give you words that you can use with your staff - just take my words and repeat them.

So again, that'sFrom Lazy Staff to High Performers., April 23rd - this is 2026, if you are listening to a replay later - at 1 p.m. Eastern.

And to sign up, go to providerpowermoves.com/lazy. The link will be in the show notes. If you have any questions or need any additional information, feel free to jot me a note - Sara at providerpowermoves.com.

Okay, back to those tips. Here are nine simple things that you can do. You don't have to do all nine - pick and choose. But let's run through nine things that you can do if you are supervising former co-workers.

Number one: Have a conversation with your former co-workers. Just level set. Let them know that you're going to treat everybody the same. It doesn't matter if someone knew you in the womb, or if someone is new to the team, or if you were close to someone when you were co-workers, or you hardly spoke with someone. Everyone will be treated the same.

Number two: To the best of your ability, keep social life out of the workplace. If you invite someone at work to attend something, invite everyone. Of course, with people that you have a relationship with, you may be attending outside things - but you don't come back into the workplace to have a conversation about the events that you've had with some co-workers if you haven't had those events with all of your co-workers. Keep those conversations out of the workplace.

Number three: Avoid whispering and having private conversations to the best of your ability, because it will be perceived as isolating everybody else. As a supervisor, you will have private conversations, but make sure that everything looks official and that you're having them in a very logical way, as consistently as you possibly can.

Number four: Be prepared to be snubbed by some of your friends. It's a sad truth that everyone who promotes up has to deal with. Some of your friends are not going to make that journey with you. The relationship will now be different because some people can't handle the transition. You do everything you can to support them to have a good transition, and you deliver as consistently as you can in the workplace. Understand - some people may not come with you. Take time to mourn those relationships. That loss is real. What you feel is real, and it's really important that you acknowledge it.

Have conversations with your support team above you on the table of organization if that's something that you need. Be sure to still treat them the same way you treat everybody else in the workplace. Don't let emotions sway you.

Number five: You may call out someone's performance issues and they may say, "Are you seriously going to identify this? Are you seriously going to write me up? Do you remember when you stole the pack of gum from the 7-Eleven when we were in the fourth grade and I didn't tell your mom - and now you are going to address this with me?"

You have to manage those situations. If somebody decides that they need to go back and tell your mom that you stole a pack of gum when you were in the fourth grade, then so be it. At work, you need to hold everyone equally, fairly, and consistently accountable, and you cannot let emotions sway you.

Number six: Start with a clean slate. If you know that some people have been cheating on their work, or doing some things that they're not supposed to be doing, or failing to do things that they are supposed to be doing - they may be quite nervous. Just call out the elephant in the room and say, "Look, I know perhaps work wasn't done completely correctly prior to this time. I want you to know that we are going to start with a clean slate. I am not going to hold those issues against you. I trust that you are going to perform correctly moving forward, and you can trust that anything that I address will be based on what I see from today forward."

Number seven: Give people time to adjust. It's a transition. You're very excited, but they have feelings. Give them some space and let them lead the amount of contact that you have and the new relationship moving forward.

Number eight: If you can, implement change slowly. Do so. Of course, you've got to produce outcomes, and you have to make sure that your staff do that as well. To facilitate the transition, make those changes as slowly and methodically as you can while you still meet the requirements that you have for your position. If you have to go fast, go fast - but put in some extra effort to explain everything along the way and show that you still work withthem and not above them.

And sometimes this is a pitfall for supervisors, because they believe that doing the work for their staff shows that they support their staff and that they are not "above them." But what I mean here is that while you are still all a team, you now have a different position.

Number nine: You are the coach. So if you played first base, goalie, linebacker, or whatever sport resonates with you - understand that you are now the coach. And the coach does not play ball. The coach trains, ensures people practice, ensures they get the feedback that they need, provides praise where appropriate, and provides correction where appropriate. The coach is a critical part of the team - and if the coach steps down to be a player, nobody is coaching. So you are still a team, but your role has changed.

So give these nine tips a try. Pull out the ones that seem to apply to your situation the most. Keep your supervisor in the loop. How is your transition going? How are you feeling? What kind of support and feedback do you need as you transition to be the most effective supervisor that you can possibly be?

As always, I would love to hear from you and how it's going. Feel free to shoot me an email. Let me know if you tried these tips and they worked. Let me know if you tried these tips and you got stuck, and I promise I will help you get over that hump.

Be sure to like, subscribe, and share this podcast if you found it to be helpful - with colleagues who may also find it to be helpful.

Until next time, power on.