Practical guide
The job you were promoted for is not the job you now have. A new manager can keep doing familiar individual work while the conversations and decisions of the new role wait.
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Becoming a manager is one of the few promotions where being good at the previous job actively works against you. You were promoted for shipping things yourself, and shipping things yourself is now the thing you should mostly stop doing.
The first 90 days set expectations that can be expensive to change later. This is what to do in each stretch, and the traps that are easy to fall into.
The method
Roughly in this order, and the early ones matter most because they set expectations that are expensive to change later.
Meet everyone individually and ask what is working, what is broken, and what they would change if it were their call. Write it down. Change almost nothing yet. Early changes made on incomplete information are the fastest way to spend credibility you have not earned, and the team is watching to see whether you decide before you understand.
Ask your own manager what a good six months looks like, specifically enough that you could both agree afterwards on whether it happened. Without that answer, it is easy to optimise for the wrong thing. If the answer is vague, ask once more for a checkable example.
Look for an annoyance that repeated across several conversations: an unnecessary meeting, a blocking process, or an unresolved decision. Fix one that is within your authority. It shows that raising a concrete issue with you can lead to action.
Start with a regular thirty-minute meeting driven by their agenda rather than a status update. Repeated cancellations signal that the meeting is optional. Use the time to hear about problems while they are still small.
If you noticed a specific issue early and have been avoiding it, address it while the details are still clear. Waiting can turn a small correction into a formal judgement, and avoiding all corrective feedback can make praise feel less credible.
Name the work you are still doing that should now belong to someone else, and hand it over with context rather than instructions. Keeping every difficult task leaves less room for management and risks turning the new role into a second job.
The traps
Each of these mistakes is easier to avoid than to undo.
Managing former peers
Being promoted over people who were recently your peers adds a power change that the advice to just be yourself does not address.
Have one direct conversation with each of them in the first fortnight and name the change out loud instead of hoping it settles: this is going to be strange for a bit, and I would rather say that than pretend otherwise. Then say what will not change and what will.
If someone tests the new authority by ignoring a small decision, address the behaviour early, privately, and without heat. State the expectation and ask what got in the way.
Try one handoff
Choose a low-risk task you are still doing yourself. Write the result you need, the decisions the other person can make, and the point when you will check in. Ask what support or information they need before agreeing the handoff.
For example: prepare a one-page summary of the three options by Thursday. You choose the format; check with me before contacting anyone outside the team. Let us review the outline on Tuesday. This invented example makes the outcome and boundaries visible without prescribing every step.
We build Cadence. If delegation is the part you want to work on, explore the suggested course outline below and judge whether it fits your situation. It is a starting point for a course, not a guarantee about your team's results.
Put it into practice
If you want to keep going, Cadence turns what brought you here into a course of short daily lessons with practice and saved progress. Cadence is our app.
Questions
Meet everyone individually, ask what is working and what is broken, and change almost nothing. Also ask your own manager what a good six months looks like, specifically enough that you would both agree afterwards on whether it happened. Early changes made before you understand the team cost credibility you have not earned yet.
Mostly yes, and faster than feels comfortable. Staying the person who does the tricky part feels productive, but it leaves no room for the job you were given and no room for your team to grow into the work. Hand things over with context, not instructions.
Name the change out loud in a direct conversation within the first fortnight instead of hoping it settles on its own. Say what will change and what will not. If someone ignores a decision, address the behaviour early, privately, and without heat.
Start with a regular thirty-minute meeting driven by their agenda, not a status update you could get elsewhere. Avoid repeated cancellations, and use the time to hear about problems while they are still small.
Address a specific issue while the details are still clear rather than waiting for a formal review. The exact timing depends on the situation, but avoiding all corrective feedback can make both expectations and praise less credible.
See it in concrete terms
These Cadence courses cover the transition in daily lessons, with the syllabus visible before you start.
Shift from doing the work yourself to setting context, inspecting quality, and helping other people succeed.
Use one-on-ones to surface friction, coach decisions, and keep expectations current instead of filling the slot.
Make feedback specific, useful, and easier for a teammate to act on without burying the point.
Sources
Continue in Cadence
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