[font="Arial"]A relevant topic for any career progression!

Before my move to IT I had progressed from Saturday Boy through to Dept Manager at a retail outlet.

I found that the further up the management structure I moved the less 'truthful' communication you seemed to have with your co-workers. People say what they think you want to hear rather than the truth, leaving you to tease the real information out. You also have to act as a filter, shielding the team & higher management alike by passing information up or down, weeding out unhelpful comments, filtering the meaning of frustrated/angry comments into something you can pass on and letting the buck stop with you as the team leader.

However the most difficult thing I found was disciplining (in any form) members of your team that once worked alongside or even above me. People sometimes feel that you don’t hold the authority or expect favours/special treatment that you can't give because you now have to look at the whole picture, and all the knock on effects.

People skills replaced knowledge at the top of the skill set, yet that knowledge is still a massive part of the job as the respect given to you by your staff revolves around both abilities.

In short it was a constant balancing act and a steep learning curve, the success of which only being measured in productivity; the happier people are the better they work.

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