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My subordinates are my former peers - I was promoted a few months ago.

I feel like ever since I have been promoted to being their manager, they take every opportunity to belittle me in front of our and others' superiors. They ridicule or complain out loud about things I asked them to do, and they openly advertise our flaws in my superiors' presence rather than discretely giving me feedback. They also act like they know better about our work.

One thing is absolutely true: I spend less work on the technical stuff and more with the managerial stuff. So my subordinates obviously are up to date and often have a 100% sure answer.

I know my superiors are happy with my performance, but I fear what is happening is strategically bad for my career - on top of making me feel very uncomfortable.

I would appreciate your advice on what steps I can take to improve my career growth. I think that it all boils down to a dilemma: - either I trust my team and help them freely grow, but this could make me look incompetent - start firing those who are uncomfortable

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    How is this different from the question below this one?
    – Telastyn
    Dec 12, 2013 at 2:33
  • what telastyn meant was this question.
    – Malcolm Salvador
    Dec 12, 2013 at 2:55
  • This seems like a duplicate of workplace.stackexchange.com/q/17289/325, but I can't choose that as a dupe target because it doesn't have an answer. :-(
    – Monica Cellio
    Dec 12, 2013 at 19:16
  • This isn't really a dupe, as the other question is about a peer (or client), not subordinates. The relationship between peers, provider-client, and superior-subordinate relationships are all different.
    – user9158
    Mar 4, 2014 at 1:22
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    @LegoStormtroopr - Would you be interested in creating a discussion on The Workplace Meta regarding this post, or at least dropping a link to it in The Workplace Chat? Additionally, since you see the differences, you'd be a great person to give this an edit to help further clarify those differences, which would also drop it into the reopen review queue.
    – jmort253
    Mar 4, 2014 at 4:09

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You'll get no respect in your first management role - you're a newbie and you're paying dues. Some of them are jealous - don't let it get to you. Once you fire someone they'll think you actually have gonads. As soon as your senior managers start beating up on you then your subordinates will rush to your defense.

Management is planning, executing, measuring, and control. You should be supporting your team members - making sure they have the software, time, information, and encouragement needed to complete their work. On your part, this means 'seeing ahead' to make sure their resources are appropriate. If you see imbalances in the work load, and redistribute the work, you'll get some respect for being 'fair'. If you can demonstrate to your team that you can tell when they're doing well or not, they'll appreciate you in comparison to someone that is arbitrary and playing favorites.

Take them out for a beer once every couple of weeks and just let everyone veg. Show them you're as human as you were when you worked in the next cubie.

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