[dfxm12]

What's the way in? Hope you find yourself in a job where there are leadership positions open and the stars align and you're promoted into one?

In corporate jobs, this is rarely the way in. Most likely, you'll have to convince your current manager (and maybe theirs) that you're ready to be a manager and look for a manager opening elsewhere in the company. If you think you're ready and your current employer does not, you'll have to look outside.

Years of leadership seems like a purposefully vague credential. It's not about a title; if you don't think you've been a leader at work, you probably weren't (or maybe you were and your talent just wasn't managed properly ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ).

[ryandrake]

> In corporate jobs, this is rarely the way in. Most likely, you'll have to convince your current manager (and maybe theirs) that you're ready to be a manager and look for a manager opening elsewhere in the company.

Also, get ready for a lot of gatekeeping. “Oh, you don’t really want to be a manager! It’s so much more responsibility and work. You should be happy to be a foot soldier for the rest of your career! Management is not all it’s cracked up to be. As you can see I’m stressed all the time! Now excuse me, I have to go close on my second vacation home in Hawaii.”

[shantly]

The requirement's usually tied to holding the title, like they want that to have been your full-time thing. It's been my experience that people see what you're doing in a very different light depending on your title (one title, one company one day, everyone second-guesses or ignores everything you say; different title, different company, a few days later, suddenly everyone's deferring to you in meetings and sincerely asking your opinion about everything to such a degree that it's unnerving) including in hindsight—if your title was "lead" you don't have to spend a ton of time explaining exactly how, as a non-"lead", you were leading to convince people you were, and you don't have to avoid giving the impression you were being "bossy" or overstepping by doing it.

[EDIT] my suspicion here is that yeah, it's basically "luck into it". I mean that's how everything else I've done career- and pay-progression-wise has worked (luck into someone tasking me with something they definitely wouldn't hire me to do, but after I've done it for a few months someone else would) so maybe this'll work out the same way.

[dominotw]

> If you think you're ready and your current employer does not, you'll have to look outside.

Is it even possible to find a management position outside without management experience?

[ryandrake]

I’ve faced the typical deadlock that first time job seekers encounter: you need management experience to get hired as a manager, but nobody will give you a chance to get management experience because you’ve never managed before.