Lessons From A Higher Level Role
The jump from Manager to Director isn’t just about a bigger team or a broader scope. It’s a different way of thinking and operating.
As a Manager, you’re focused on execution. You’re close to the work, solving small problems, and helping your team deliver.
As a Director, your role shifts. You’re no longer just solving problems. You’re deciding which problems matter, and building the systems that solve them at scale. Your scope of influence changes dramatically. That transition isn’t always obvious, and it’s not something you fully understand until you’re in it.
After stepping into a Director of QA role, a few lessons became very clear to me. Some new, some things I thought I knew but only really understood once I had to operate at this new level. I'm still learning and adjusting every single day, but thought it useful to share some tips and tricks in hopes it helps anyone treading a similar path.
This isn't meant to be a deep dive but rather a quickfire of tips.
Tips & Tricks
Be a Sponge
You cannot effectively lead a team without understanding the domain you're working in, what people do, and most importantly WHY they do it. That understanding becomes the foundation of your strategy and the lens through which you prioritize everything.
In fact, taking it a step further by understanding the historical context of everything is crucial. It helps you truly grasp the “why”, building deeper connections and avoiding repeating past mistakes. More importantly, it helps you prioritize what actually matters.
Reject The Status Quo
Once you understand everything and the context behind it all, challenge the status quo where it doesn’t make sense. That’s how meaningful change happens.
You'll often hear: "we tried that before", "it's impossible", "this is how it's always been".
Recognize that you bring a fresh perspective and have differing skills and experiences. Stay focused and resilient.
Unified Vision, Unified Team
Directors design systems. And the most important system you'll build isn't a process or a framework - it's alignment.
Making sure a unified vision, strategy, and set of guidelines exists is the single most important contribution you can make early on. It becomes your team's north star. It signals to other teams what to expect from you. It creates the conditions for setting expectations, gathering important metrics, and managing performance consistently and fairly.
Document it. Present it. Message about it constantly. Remind people. Train them. Get detailed when you have to. Make it front-and-centre of everything you do.
And be realistic about rollout. You'll likely need to introduce your strategy in waves. Think short-term and longer-term goals. Baby steps are easier than big leaps, for you and for the team.
Priority Is Everything
When you have a laundry list of action items, things to fix, and new ideas to implement, it can get overwhelming for you, your direct team, and other teams around you.
Treat it like building an MVP with an Agile mindset. Create an initial list of P1 items to implement and as you work through the list, upgrade P2 items to P1 and continue. Think of it like creating quarterly goals where completing each item in order will help you achieve your yearly goals. The list never disappears, but a clear priority order means the right things get done first.
Roll Up Your Sleeves
You need to be ready to roll up your sleeves and dive in to the details or create those details yourself. In fact, it's mandatory if you want any chance of getting things right and gaining any credibility.
On the flip side, be careful not to be enveloped for too long. There’s a point where you need to step back and refocus on broader team strategy and execution.
When you do, make sure the structure is in place for others to carry things forward (see the next tip).
Set Clear Roles, Responsibilities, and Goals
Every organization has different expectations of its people due to various factors like culture, growth path, and leadership. Sometimes those expectations don't exactly fit your vision and strategy.
So make it explicit. Set clear roles, define the responsibilities that come with them, and give people concrete examples of what good (and bad) looks like. Then create goals that help each individual reach the desired outcome. Follow up, course-correct when needed, and make sure the right training and support is in place.
Don't Tread Alone
No matter what you do, nothing can be accomplished in silo. You will need people from your team and other teams. Be kind, respectful, and helpful.
Make as many friends with as many people as possible across various teams/disciplines and levels. Invest in those relationships. Quid pro quo is real whether we like it or not: scratch someone's back to get yours scratched.
Yes, you'll sometimes have to bend your own rules to help someone out. That's not being unprincipled - that's being strategic. The broader your network and the stronger your relationships, the more you'll be able to actually progress on your goals helping both the team and company.
Listen To Your Gut
You'll face more decisions in a week than most people face in a month. And while good processes, data, and clear frameworks will take you far, there will be times where you have to lean on instinct.
Here's what I've found: that instinct is right far more often than it isn't. It's the accumulated weight of everything you've learned, wrapped in a feeling. Don't dismiss it. Listen to it.
Hone Your Metrics Skills
Get better at metrics and data presentation. Figure out what you want to measure, how you want to measure it, and be consistent in tracking it. Tailor the team's processes/guidelines accordingly to make metrics gathering easier (or better yet, automate as much as possible).
This is critical to measuring your success and that of each individual and the team. It can surface critical action items to add to your backlog. Data is irrefutable.
Master The Narrative
When you're in a higher-level role, your audience includes executives and VPs who may not know the ins and outs of your work or discipline.
So, make sure to think and present from a business and impact perspective. Use language that is universally understandable. Less is more as they say, but be ready to dive into the details at any time.
Directors live and die by how well they frame a story. Raw data doesn't move budgets nor affect change — a compelling narrative does. Learn to connect your team's work directly to revenue, risk reduction, efficiencies or cost savings, and/or competitive advantage.
Protect Your Team's Capacity
With a larger team, everyone will want something from you and them. The team will be pulled in different directions. As the workload increases and people become busier, it doesn't leave room to implement your strategy or improvements.
Learn to diplomatically but firmly push back. Quantify the cost of every unplanned request. There will be escalations when you reject requests, so be ready with data and explanations of trade-offs.
Be empathetic as well, but be firm. People's work and progress depends on you so rejecting requests will no doubt flare emotions.
Learn To Manage Upwards
Don't underestimate the importance of managing upwards. Make sure your own leaders understand your vision and direction. Get their feedback early and often. Proactively controlling the information flow upward — what they hear, when they hear it, and how it's framed — shapes how your entire org is perceived. Surprises going up the chain are always bad.
Make trade-offs explicit. Doing something means neglecting this other thing. Work with your leaders to prioritize. Make them part of the journey and just as invested as you are. Your success is tightly coupled with how well your leadership chain understands and supports your work.
Also, make sure to learn the working style of your leaders. If they're always data driven, have the data handy. If they like to dig into details, make sure you can speak to that level of information.
Managing Managers Is A Different League
A big change is moving from managing individual contributors to managing managers. You’re no longer directly responsible for the output of every person. You’re responsible for the people who are responsible for that output.
It’s tempting to dive in, solve problems yourself, or give direction directly to ICs. But doing that consistently undermines your managers and creates confusion in the team's chain. So while you may have to do it a couple times, you need to find a time to extract yourself.
Your focus should shift to enabling your managers to succeed. Align them on expectations, give them context, give them metrics to work with, help them make decisions, and hold them accountable for outcomes.
If your managers are coming to you for every decision, or their teams are relying on you instead of them, that’s a signal. Your job isn’t to be the best problem solver in the room anymore. It’s to build people who can operate effectively without you.
Curb Your Expectations
You could do everything right and hand-hold every single step, heck do the work yourself even, and then realize that 1 year plan is turning into a 3 year one. That's ok. Happens to everyone from what I've seen.
Don't let it deter you. Instead, avoid complacency and like we said before don't accept the status quo. Be persistent and relentless in your pursuit. Adjust and go back to the tips we already discussed.
In Summary
As a Manager, you solve problems. As a Director or above, you define what those problems are, their priorities, and then design systems to help solve them.
The honest truth is, I'm not sure if I'm a much better leader at this point but I've certainly become a different one.
And if there’s one thing I’ve realized, it’s that this role isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about asking better questions, making trade-offs, and building the kind of environment where the right things happen - even when you’re not in the room.