Nobody really prepares you for becoming a manager. You can take leadership courses, read books about management, learn how to conduct performance reviews, delegate tasks, set goals, and run meetings. You can study every framework ever created about leadership. Then you become responsible for other people and realize that most of management has very little to do with frameworks. It is about people. It is about making decisions when you do not have all the information, giving feedback when you know it might hurt, protecting your team while still holding them accountable, and knowing when to step in and when to get out of the way. Perhaps most importantly, it is learning that being good at your job and being good at managing people are two very different things. Your job changes completely One of the biggest surprises is how quickly your definition of "work" changes. When you are an individual contributor, you are largely responsible for your own output. You can measure your pro...