How do I decide whether to move from an individual contributor to a manager?

[Olivia66]

I’ve been offered a promotion to a management role, but I’m hesitant because I’ve always excelled as an individual contributor. I’m worried that moving away from hands-on work might make me less valuable if I don’t succeed at people leadership. Has anyone else struggled with this specific career pivot?

[RichardJ]

I did that pivot a few years back and found you can stay close to the craft while leading. I started weekly 1:1s, began coaching teammates, and kept a small hands-on project so I wasn’t totally out of the loop. Not perfect, but the team moved faster and I learned to let go without feeling useless.

[MilaR]

I stayed mostly IC for a while and tried a half step—leading a small project while still helping with code reviews. It felt better than reinventing everything, but I kept feeling detached from the daily craft and the impact was murky. The tangible results were there, but the personal payoff wasn’t clean.

[Robert_J]

Quick move, new role, a dozen meetings a day, a few coding tasks sprinkled in. I burned out fast and realized I’d leaned too far into process and not enough into people. We slowed down, set guardrails, and I learned to trust others more, but it wasn’t easy to accept.

[JeffreyLH]

What exactly about the hands‑on work do you feel you’d miss the most?