What do you look for when someone on your team wants to make the move from an individual contributor to a people manager?

• This is hard to quantify, but for me, it's all about being easy to work with and a great collaborator. Cross-functional collaboration is inherent to product marketing leadership and people have to enjoy working with you. 

• Think about thinking. One of the biggest adjustments for ICs is taking the time to form clear POVs. You have to anticipate meeting topics and questions that might come up and make sure you have well-formed opinions. 

• Finally, it's not about you anymore, it's about your team. Empathy, accessibility, trust and self-regulation are paramount for modern people managers. 

Not every great individual contributor is going to be a great manager. It's harsh but true! Managing and leading people is a totally different skill set, and what made someone a great IC is not what's going to make them a great manager (in fact, it may make them a terrible manager!)

I first want to know: Why? What's the motivation for being a people leader? If it's because it's perceived that managing others is the only way to move up, that's not a great motivation for leading. But if there's a desire to help someone else grow in their career, to take on a new challenge by learning to delegate, to teach someone else how to do the job, so that they can focus on strategic planning, resourcing, and organizational operations--that makes a little more sense.

The unsexy but also very important factor in the transition from IC to Manager is business need. There has to be a reason for the organization to level people and create a team under someone. Sometimes it's the span of control of the org getting too big; other times it's that the work needs more hands, and it makes the most sense for the person already leading the work to now manage others also doing the work. But realistically, business need and org design are what drive the ultimate decision to become a manager, less so someone's desire to be one. The desire has to be there, but it's not going to be the deciding factor.