The uncomfortable middle: Growing as a Director in uncertain times

Promoted to Director during a company downsizing, I navigated leading managers and teams with clashing dynamics. This talk explores leadership growth, balancing process and discomfort, and driving outcomes in challenging times.

Being promoted during a downsizing can be a jarring experience when your role grows into suddenly managing managers. This talk explores the unique challenges of growing into your new role and trying to level-up an entire department in the wake of a significant reorganization.

Key takeaways

• How to navigate a sudden promotion during a down-sizing when morale is low and acknowledging how strange that can feel
• Navigating leading managers with clashing dynamics as the organization adopts new processes
• How to push a team into healthy levels of discomfort to facilitate growth, even admist all the turmoil
• Growing as a leader of leaders during tumolt is hard and you can’t rush change (the first mistake I made)
• The unique experience of managing the same person in different roles (IC -> manager) and the wildly different experience it was
• Aftermath of a challenging decision to move a manager back into IC and how I wish I’d acted sooner