So I’m getting a promotion soon (yay!), moving up from just a line cook to sous-chef and I’ve only been with this company for a few months. Thing is that I’m still quite young (mid twenties) and will be the direct supervisor of some people a fair bit older than I am. Think 10-20 years older. It might just still be a bit of imposter syndrome, but the idea of having to tell people who have been in the business for far longer than I what to do and such really weirds me out.
I feel I wouldn’t like it if “some young brat” that just got hired almost immediately gets a promotion and becomes my supervisor eventhough I worked at the company for far longer. Though maybe not everyone feels like this.
Do other people who have experience with a situation like this have any advice on how to deal with this? It’s kinda been keeping me up at night…
I used to work above a guy who had a reputation in the company for not really taking direction well from anyone (hence why he ended up in our section) and he was about double my age.
What I used to do was mention two things that needed doing and ask him which one he wanted to do. Most of what we did could’ve been done by either of us but in letting him pick what he wanted he had more inclination to actually do it. The rapport that came from this did allow me to jump on the few things that I wanted and get minimal backlash because I was fair most of the time.
Treat people with respect and make them feel like their opinions are valued.
If it comes to personal stories and life experience in conversation - try and take a lot more of a listening role and acknowledge their experience. They’ll feel valued in that space which will translate over to respect in the working space.