Isn't it crazy, you spend so many years training and building your experience to become great at your job. So much so that you get rewarded with a promotion to management. A position you are given no training for. It is a hard transition and most people have difficulty with it.
First of all, congrats on the promotion.
You need to ask yourself, was coding what made you leap out of bed in the morning or was it that you were building something?
If it was coding then you need to go back to your old role. Please repeat to yourself this is not a failure despite what popular media and the start-up bro culture tells you. If you find a job and role that you love you are beating 90% of the workforce and win at life!
If it was building then you might still be able to make this CTO role work, just in a different way than you are used to.
Forget about technology, you are now a people manager. People are now your tools to build something. Fighting fires and dealing with everyone's crap is usually a sign of some kind of micromanagement. Have you placed yourself in the middle of everyone's decision making process? Are you their road bock for getting stuff done? This is often a result of giving your team tasks to do instead of goals.
Activities describe how people spend their time, whereas goals are the results that they seek.
Give each team member a goal and some kind of structure on how they can make their own decisions to achieve their goal. For example you can tell everyone any decision that takes less then half a day to implement they can decide. Anything that takes more time than that they should discuss with you.
Your goal is to set their goal and then get out of their way. You need to run interference between them and distractions from other parts of the company. Check in with them regularly to mentor and coach them to achieve their goal.
Can you empower team leads below yourself to do some of the mundane management?
When I worked for a performance management company I posted this over on Quora on goal setting. https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-a-goal-an...
Setting a goal changes the conversation from them coming to you with problems to coming to you with ideas and solutions.
One lesson I learnt when dealing with other managers, departments and up the line is that you have to over communicate. Everyone is mad busy in a start up and they will not remember what you discussed and all agreed last month. You almost need to market yourself, your team, goals and achievements to get their buy in. Run some regular workshops to get further buy in from them.
Your depression may stem from the feeling that you are not doing a good job more than the role itself so keep that in mind.
I have gone through the painful transition myself from doer to manager and I have made all the mistakes :) Design and marketing is my area, not tech.
Happy to answer any questions you might have alan at spoiltchild.com
First of all, congrats on the promotion.
You need to ask yourself, was coding what made you leap out of bed in the morning or was it that you were building something?
If it was coding then you need to go back to your old role. Please repeat to yourself this is not a failure despite what popular media and the start-up bro culture tells you. If you find a job and role that you love you are beating 90% of the workforce and win at life!
If it was building then you might still be able to make this CTO role work, just in a different way than you are used to.
Forget about technology, you are now a people manager. People are now your tools to build something. Fighting fires and dealing with everyone's crap is usually a sign of some kind of micromanagement. Have you placed yourself in the middle of everyone's decision making process? Are you their road bock for getting stuff done? This is often a result of giving your team tasks to do instead of goals.
Activities describe how people spend their time, whereas goals are the results that they seek.
Give each team member a goal and some kind of structure on how they can make their own decisions to achieve their goal. For example you can tell everyone any decision that takes less then half a day to implement they can decide. Anything that takes more time than that they should discuss with you. Your goal is to set their goal and then get out of their way. You need to run interference between them and distractions from other parts of the company. Check in with them regularly to mentor and coach them to achieve their goal. Can you empower team leads below yourself to do some of the mundane management? When I worked for a performance management company I posted this over on Quora on goal setting. https://www.quora.com/Whats-the-difference-between-a-goal-an... Setting a goal changes the conversation from them coming to you with problems to coming to you with ideas and solutions.
One lesson I learnt when dealing with other managers, departments and up the line is that you have to over communicate. Everyone is mad busy in a start up and they will not remember what you discussed and all agreed last month. You almost need to market yourself, your team, goals and achievements to get their buy in. Run some regular workshops to get further buy in from them.
Your depression may stem from the feeling that you are not doing a good job more than the role itself so keep that in mind.
I have gone through the painful transition myself from doer to manager and I have made all the mistakes :) Design and marketing is my area, not tech. Happy to answer any questions you might have alan at spoiltchild.com
Alan