Many want to take the step into top management and become a department head

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The path is not easy. As a team leader, I am suddenly no longer managing 8 but 80 employees and taking on the role of managing executives is also becoming relevant. Strategic issues are also on the agenda, which is new for many team leaders. Conversely, strategic issues are nothing new for staff departments, but the issue of leadership is.

According to Stepstone, such a promotion is worthwhile - while a team leader in IT earns 65,000 to a maximum of 76,000 euros a year, a department head in IT earns 76,000 to 90,000 euros. So the promotion brings a lot of salary and I think that the magic 100,000 is also possible after 4-5 years.

I was also able to achieve promotion to department head in 2019 and would like to tell you how I managed to get to this position. The path to this came via staff positions and team management.

Reading tip: Becoming a manager

There are generally two important aspects that department heads need to be local marketing email list able to do. One is to be able to take on large and abstract topics and the other is to have experience in managing people.

Staff unit provides experience in strategic issues
After consulting, my first step was to work in a staff position. I was an assistant to the head of department and supported him on major issues such as restructuring for 90 employees and large customer projects across departmental boundaries. I also supported the establishment of a location and an M&A takeover.

This enabled me to gain experience in large topics and also lead and manage project teams of up to 50 people. After 3 years, very large topics with complex characteristics were no longer new territory for me. I was able to gain the necessary experience to be able to manage large topics very easily as a department head with 50 employees. But what about leadership?