Managing a Former Peer
Being in charge is one thing. Being believed is another. Here’s what happens in the space between.
There’s nothing lonelier than a promotion no one claps for.
Not failure. People at least rally around that. They buy you coffee. Slack you sad emojis.
But when you move up? When you’re the one who got picked?
No one knows where to stand. Especially your old peers. Especially the ones who didn’t get picked.
Some pretend nothing’s changed. Others go quiet, waiting to see how you’ll change first.
And maybe the worst part is, they’re not wrong to wonder.
A week ago, I coached a new engineering manager. Alex. Big tech. Bay Area. The kind of role that pays $650K and costs you friends at work.
We’re fifteen minutes into the session when he gives me the nod.
Not the habitual one. Slower. Heavy in the neck. The kind that says, Alright. You’re not wrong.
There’s a pause.
“That makes sense,” he says. “I hadn’t thought about it like that. The proximity part.”
He doesn’t write it down. Some people do. They fill silence with key clicks and bullet points. Not Alex. He carries things around until they either click or crack.
“I keep thinking I can fix this,” he says. “Like if I just say the right thing, Jordan will get it. Some magic phrase.”
He shakes his head.
“I’ve read the books. Talked to my skip. Everyone says to lean into vision. Paint the future. Make it make sense.”
He looks up, checking if I agree.
“But every time I try, it feels like I’m talking at him. And he gives me this tight nod. Not fake. Not annoyed. Just... Noted.”
I ask what he thinks it means.
He smiles with his mouth, not his eyes.
“It means: I’m letting you talk because you’re my manager now. That’s all.”
Silence again.
Jordan was a peer-turned-direct. Former code conspirator. Now, a variable in Alex’s experiment with authority. Not a resistor. A fixed point. Immovable. Cool. Observing with the neutrality of a cat while someone rearranges the furniture.
“There’s no open conflict,” Alex says. “But I can feel it. It’s like…” He waves his hand.
“Like he’s moved half an inch away,” I say, “and he’s not planning to move back.”
Alex nods once.
He tells me about their first 1:1. He went in candid. Transparent.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he told Jordan. “But I want to do right by the team. I have a vision.”
Yes, Jordan nodded. And asked,
Okay. What’s your vision?
That was it. No expression. Just a question. But the kind that folds in on itself.
Alex adjusts his posture. Doesn’t talk for a moment.
“I thought being honest would help,” he says. “I thought if I showed him I wasn’t trying to be the boss, it would make things easier.”
“Easier for who?” I ask.
He looks away from the screen.
I let it hang.
This is the part of coaching people skip in the books. The stillness. The waiting. Sometimes what surfaces isn’t awkward. It’s older. Heavier. Like pressing a thumb into a bruise you didn’t realize was still there.
“You said I should tell a story,” Alex says. “About a time someone close to me became my manager.”
I give him my version of the tight nod.
He looks offscreen. Thinks for a while.
“There was this guy—Brian. We worked together for two years. Same projects. Same late nights. Same inside jokes about how clueless leadership was.”
He pauses.
“One Monday he shows up to our 1:1 and says, ‘Looks like I’m your manager now.’ Just like that. Like he’s reading the weather.”
He let out a laugh, flat as paper.
“After that, it was updates. Alignment. The usual stuff.”
Another pause.
“He didn’t become a jerk. Just not Brian.”
He sits back. Doesn’t speak.
“Did you ever tell him?” I ask.
“No,” he says. Quick.
“Didn’t seem fair. He didn’t ask for the job either.”
That line—he didn’t ask for the job either—lands hard. Like something said alone in the car. Or under his breath in the shower.
“What would you have wanted from him?”
He blinks. Tilts his head.
“I don’t know. Maybe just… a second. Where he stops trying to be a boss and says,
This is weird, huh?
Just name it. Not fix it. Just say it out loud.”
He looks at me.
“And that’s what I should do with Jordan.”
I don’t say anything.
He nods again. To himself this time.
“Yeah. Just name it. Not fix it.”
We wrap the session a few minutes later.
I sit there afterward, letting Zoom finish transcribing.
What stays with me isn’t what Alex says.
It’s what he almost says.
That subtle fight between wanting to be understood and needing to be in control.
New managers show up thinking it’s about direction. Metrics. Strategy.
But it’s not. Not really. It’s about learning how to stand where you used to belong—and stay there—even when no one looks at you quite the same.
And most days, nobody warns you how lonely that in-between can feel.
Maybe Alex will say something to Jordan next week. Maybe not. That’s his call.
But I hope he does. I hope he says,
This is weird, huh?
Because the truth is: it is.
And pretending otherwise is how you end up asking for updates in a voice that doesn’t sound like yours.
Just like Brian.
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Becoming the boss of former peers was probably the weirdest and challenging change in my leadership journey.
I faced this situation twice.
First, I failed miserably. I thought being the nice guy, keeping the same vibe, the same behavior, and expecting to cross the finish line would be enough. It wasn't. The time to make difficult decisions came... everything derailed. Lesson learned.
The second, slightly better. I had my "that's weird, huh?" moment. We had a story. We held our story, but with a different narrative. Weird as hell at first, but natural over time. Spent the next two years leading this team... amazing experience.
Thank you for reviving this memory.