One of the formidable obstacles that managers face when moving from a worker to a manager is the necessary shift in allegiance. Early in my own career I put myself in a devastating conflict of allegiance in the workplace. I learned a hard lesson about how allegiance works in business and why it is important to good decisionmaking.
Workers typically agree to a measure of allegiance to a company when they accept a job.
This measured allegiance is given by the worker and expected by the company as part of the mutually beneficial opportunities of the job. But when a worker is offered and accepts a management position, the worker and the company dramatically change their existing relationship. In barter for the management role and associated benefits, a company expects a worker to assume an obligation of allegiance to the company that dramatically exceeds the measured allegiance of a worker. The problem is that this new obligation is rarely stated, defined, or discussed. But in business it is always presumed to be part of the management package.