(This article is an edited extract from the free guide, ‘From Engineer to Manager – 8 Key success Factors’)

You know the story. Someone, who is very good at their job and generally well-liked and respected, gets appointed to a position where they are now managing a small team of peers. Everything can start out so well and, at first, it can seem like a new and exciting challenge. Most of the time though, this transition is handled badly and many companies recognise this as perhaps one of the most difficult people development issues. Google, in an extensive multi-year review of management development practice called 'Project Oxygen' highlighted that one of the most significant management problems is when 'fantastic individual contributors are promoted to managers without the necessary skills to lead people'.

It's important to understand what typically goes wrong in order to fully understand why it's so important to actively do something about it. If we don’t...