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For the ones who have made this leap before me, there’s a good chance that they’ve understood the rationale behind the conspicuous play on words in inscribing ‘Sideways’ in the title instead of ‘Forward’. For in my short, yet vastly exciting experience, it is exactly as such; a lateral shift in all the senses. I’ll take it off from there, as it is the most abstract way in which I can articulate my thoughts on transitioning from an individual contributor (IC) to a leader.

From the onset of my career in data, back when machine learning sounded like a verbatim quote straight out of The Matrix movie, I naturally tended towards to, and focused all my energy on, mastering the tools of the trade. The way I saw it was that data is the crude oil extracted from the source, the tools represented the refinery plant that processed the oil and produced something worthy of note. My self-perceived role in this new “gold rush” was to tune the refinery plant to perfection — until there was no conceivable way of deriving anything further of value from the raw material.

Over the years, the technologies changed and the tuning took a different form (took on bigger challenges) but my approach remained the same. There was however, one predicament that I would yet have to realise later in my career; that throughout the years, I never invested any of my professional time in sharpening my people skills. “I didn’t need to” I told myself — particularly because I had no intention of parting ways from my beloved universe consisting solely of SQL, Java Script, Python/R and the odd visualisation tool. Put simply, I had no ambition of becoming a leader of anything. My passion for building things off the back of data with my own hands biased me to think in this way, you see. Truth be told, I didn’t quite understand what it meant to be a leader!

As my career developed, a pattern emerged; the time taken for me to reach a plateau in terms of learning (specifically technical skills, product and business knowledge) was progressively getting shorter and subsequently giving way to my mind to start yearning for a new and bigger challenge, be it a new project or a new adventure altogether.

One day, my current manager, as if he were able to somehow grasp my pensive state of mind, approached me with the proposition of taking on more leadership responsibilities within the data team that I formed part of. I wasn’t exactly sure how to respond to this; on one hand it seemed evident to both that I was navigating my way through yet another plateau segment of the learning curve (ready to take on the next big leap) and on the other hand, the lack of desire to become a leader. His premise was based on the gradual observation from his part that, seeing as I had the longest tenure in the team, I was, unbeknownst to me, already demonstrating traits of a “leader” (coaching, technical guidance, helping with the scaling and up-skilling of the team and becoming less tactical in my approach and thinking more strategically). Upon a little self-reflection I was able to see his point.

I was still highly sceptical about my capabilities of leading a team (and in all honesty, quite afraid), and I was also still happy within my capacity as an IC…but the idea tempted me. This was an opportunity for me to step outside of my literal comfort zone and learn about this uncharted domain (for me personally, that is). We made a mutual arrangement to give leadership a try!

The plan was for me to divide up my time between the role of an IC and leading a team of 4 individuals for the next 5 months, by the end of which, we would review and together decide if I should make the move to a permanent team lead or revert back to an IC. This period was probably one of the most difficult I’ve yet faced in my life, both professionally and personally. It was a period of immeasurable growth and learning — I felt that I had reached a new inflection point in my career and the learning curve was very steep (recall my earlier remark about not having invested enough time early on in my career to developing my people skills? Well, this significantly steepened the learning curve). It was around this time when a sudden realisation dawned on me: “Becoming a leader is not a vertical career move, but a lateral one (a complete contradiction to my prior perception), starting completely from scratch with a skill set which, for the most part, I had yet still to acquire” — but I was happy that I was learning so much from talented and experienced leaders. What made this phase particularly difficult however is switching back and forth between the two roles, i.e. figuring out when I needed to put on the leader hat versus the IC hat. Planning out my week, dedicating entire chucks of the day to focus on either area, helped a great deal in this regard. It was also challenging to adapt to the wide spectrum of personalities in my team, but with a lot of communication and a healthy feedback loop we fostered strong relationships of mutual trust.

Another noteworthy challenge which I faced was that of delegation. My mind was still programmed to think in the capacity of an IC, and so at the time, delegation felt more like abdication. Suddenly, when I was presented with a problem, I could no longer just think of how I would solve it, but rather, how I can bring my team together to come up with the optimal solution. It took me a couple of months to adjust to this new way of thinking, but eventually I got there.

Throughout the entire process, my manager remained a close observer; mentoring, supporting, advising and, most importantly, empowering me. Fast forward 5 months and it’s decision time! My manager had asked for feedback regarding my performance from my team as well as from stakeholders which I had been working closely with. I was a tad nervous (to put it mildly) but at the same time very eager to get a fully honest assessment about my ability to perform the mammoth task of leading a team (something which I had previously not dedicated much thought to). The overall consensus was overwhelmingly encouraging. In many ways it was a life-altering experience — I had never before put myself in a position where I was to receive feedback from so many different professional and competent profiles.

I was fully aware that ahead of me lies a learning curve of truly epic proportions, but being encouraged by my peers, reports, manager, people-partner team and stakeholders, I wholeheartedly decided to accept the challenge (and the responsibilities that come with) of a permanent team lead.

The first order of business which I decided to act upon in my new capacity as a leader was to clearly define a mission statement for the team…”What does success look like?”, and make sure we are all on the same page. Secondly, it was to establish a clear and actionable career progression plan for each of my reports (the success of the company depends on the success of its people!).

From here onwards, everything fell into place. The team (which today consists of 9 members, including myself) is making great strides forward and delivering product-shaping insights. I feel incredibly lucky and an immense sense of responsibility to be leading a team of top-notch, technically gifted individuals. There is a challenge around every corner but every day I am learning things which help me do my job better.

A Great Leap Sideways: My journey of transitioning from an individual contributor to a leader was originally published in Glovo Engineering on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.