For many people, the move to a management position is an exciting step in their personal and professional development.  Often, the promotion represents recognition for your successful performance as an individual contributor, and acknowledgment of your potential as a manager. Your manager's announcement might sound like this - "You've done such a great job as a sales rep that we're going to make you the sales manager." You might (hopefully!) get an office and a raise.

The challenge new managers quickly discover is that life as a manager is significantly different from anything they've experienced, and particularly at the outset, overwhelming.

As an individual performer, you were responsible for performing specific tasks; your contribution to the success of your organization was individual. It depended on your personal experience, expertise, initiative and action.

As a manager you're in charge of a particular department or work unit, with employees who formally report to you. While you still may perform some technical or sales tasks - particularly in your first management position - your primary responsibility will be to achieve results through the efforts of others - your employees, peers, managers, clients and suppliers. You now need to be able to motivate, develop and support your staff, create a positive work environment, liaise with others in the organization, interpret and enforce policy and represent your employer to the community at large.

In a way, management is a paradox, because it represents a balance between authority and dependence. As a manager you have the authority to make decisions and choices that will affect results for your customers, your organization and your employees. At the same time you're dependent on each of these groups to help you achieve those results. The challenges are great, and so are the rewards.

Linda A. Hill, a Professor of Business Administration at Harvard, followed the careers of 19 new managers to study the challenges they faced becoming managers. She found that over their "journey", new managers needed to address four main tasks:

• Learning what it means to be a manager
• Developing interpersonal judgment
• Understanding yourself
• Coping with stress and emotion