Every month, we send a challenge for our alumni to respond to. Our coaches review every response, summarising what your peers think is the best approach, and how as a group you feel you should proceed. Try this month’s challenge for yourself below.

After your first three months in your first people leadership role, you are feeling overwhelmed. You are worried you are not up to this new challenge and your own manager’s glib advice that “every new manager gets stage fright” has not helped.

You were promoted due to your immense technical knowledge and your strong work ethic in comparison to many of your old teammates. Unfortunately, your new manager told you due to budget shortfalls you can’t fill your old technical role for 12 months and that the team will need to share the work. The reality is that even among your old peers, everyone accepted no one came close to your level of technical skills and knowledge, so you have kept many of your old technical responsibilities. Three months in, you feel like you are already reaching burnout and your team of five is starting to complain they rarely get any time with you. Your partner and son are also complaining they don’t see you except for your son’s weekly soccer game, whose team you also coach – a role in your community you love and have done for the last three years.

Today you just found out one of your parents is going to need a lot of help and support to recover from a major operation for the next 6 months. You are an only child.

What are the next three things you are going to do?