You are now managing the people you used to sit with

Last month you were one of them. Same row of desks, same lunch, same complaints about how decisions get made here. Now you run the team. Nobody has said anything awkward yet, and that is most of what makes it awkward. Who is going to raise it, you or them?

The group chat has gone quieter. You hear things slightly later than you used to. Someone you have known for six years uses your full name in a meeting, and it lands oddly for both of you.

The friendship is not what makes this hard

You will be told to draw a line and keep your distance. Follow that and you give away the one advantage you actually have. You know these people. You know who is carrying too much, who goes quiet when they are worried, and who needs the brief in writing or it will not happen.

The difficulty is that the terms have changed and nobody has said so out loud. You are still talking the old way. They are working out which version of you is in the room, especially when the news is bad. That guessing is the drag on everything, not the fact that you like each other. Which of them has told you something you did not want to hear since you took the job?

Say the change out loud, one person at a time

Sit down with each of them separately in the first fortnight. Not a team announcement, and not a speech. Name the strange part yourself, because they are not going to go first.

Say what you expect to be different. Some things they used to argue with you about as an equal, you will now decide. You will hear things about the wider business that you cannot pass on. You will sometimes hand them work they do not want.

Then ask, and mean it. What would you want me doing differently now that I am in this seat? What did I get wrong about this team when I was sitting where you are? Write the answers down. Part of what they tell you is a test of whether you can still be told the truth.

The first small decision is the one they read

Nobody is judging you on the plan you present next quarter. They are watching who gets the interesting piece of work in week three. They are watching whether your closest friend on the team gets a holiday request approved faster than anyone else. What was the first decision of yours that this team could actually see?

Be careful with the early small ones, and be visible about them. If the good project goes to the person you are nearest to, say why in front of everybody, and make the reason about the work. If you cannot make the reason about the work, give it to someone else.

The opposite failure is just as common and harder to spot. Newly promoted managers often come down hardest on the colleague they were closest to, to prove they are not playing favourites. That is not fairness. Somebody else is simply paying for your discomfort. Who on this team is currently getting a worse deal because of how it might look?

A refusal counts here too. At some point you will turn down a request from the person who quietly picked up your work when you were drowning. The pull is to soften it until it stops being a no. Say it plainly instead, and stay normal with them afterwards. People handle a refusal better than you expect. What they struggle with is a manager who goes distant for a fortnight.

Someone here wanted the job

Often one of them applied. Sometimes they have been here far longer than you have. They may be entirely civil with you and still be grieving something quietly.

Do not pretend it did not happen. Raise it early, plainly, and without apologising for having the role. Tell them what you rate in their work, specifically enough that it cannot be mistaken for a line. Then ask what they want next, and be straight about whether you can help with it.

If it is still there in six months, and it is showing up in the work, it becomes an ordinary performance conversation and you hold it like one. Letting it run because you feel guilty about the outcome does nobody a favour, least of all them.

Some of it does go, and that is the trade

Be honest with yourself about the loss. You will not be in every conversation now. Some of that closeness was built on being equally powerless about the same frustrations, and you are not in that position any more. Pretending otherwise makes you look like you have not noticed.

What you can hold on to is the part worth holding on to. Be straight with them. Tell them what you are able to tell them, and say clearly when something is not yours to share, rather than inventing a reason. Most of them will stop thinking about the change long before you do. They are mainly working out whether you are fair and whether you are honest, and both of those you can start answering this week.