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Tera Simon on The Management Career Path artwork

Time Limit podcast • 47 episodes

Tera Simon on The Management Career Path

Tera Simon, delivery director at Globant, joins Brett Harned to talk about moving from managing projects to managing project managers. She explains what changes when you become a people manager, what she wishes she had known, how a mentor and leadership training helped, and the team meetings, coaching circles and one-on-ones she uses to support her PMs.

Key takeaways

  • Not every project manager wants to be a people manager; go into it because you like coaching people, not because the title implies it.
  • As a manager you lose the direct control you had over a project plan and have to let your PMs run their own rooms.
  • Difficult conversations learned as a PM are the foundation for the harder ones you have with direct reports.
  • Find a mentor, take any leadership training offered, and in tense meetings listen more than you speak.
  • PMs rarely admit they need help, so build trust in one-on-ones, run coaching circles, and block calendar time for your own desk work.

About this episode

It seems like the natural project management career would lead to people management. But why? Managing projects is a far cry from managing people. And doing both at the same time? That sounds like madness. But people do it every day. In fact, this week’s guest is one of those people. Tera Simon works at Globant where she leads projects and project managers, among other things. In this episode of Time Limit, Tera and Brett discuss:

  • Why people want to be managers
  • The challenges of managing people
  • Resources for new managers
  • What it’s like to manage project managers

Resources mentioned in this episode: