Hooray! Your endless toil and great success have been recognized. You have been promoted and now wear the sash, and carry the burden, of leadership. You now have the opportunity to enjoy the rewarding experiences -- and challenges -- that come with the leadership. You now need to go beyond the navigation of personalities of co-workers, and move to managing them. While your workspace may not have changed, you need to mentally and emotionally rise above the cube and workstation where you established that amazing track record. Congratulations, you are a leader. Now what?

Believe it or not, it is not that bad. At first, you are sure to experience that uneasy feeling that comes with rapid change. Like the first day at a new school, there are techniques and strategies that will keep you out of trouble and hasten your acceptance in your new role.

Accept your past

As a leader within an organization where you have recently moved up the leadership ladder, your challenges are great and many. Whether you are the corporate equivalent of Mother Theresa or you lean more toward Ivan the Terrible, you have baggage. Your coworkers and teammates know you and have formed opinions of you that will follow your ascent.

No matter what you do, the specter of your past role will haunt you a bit. The good news is that your actions as a leader will eventually eclipse your history. If you do the right thing and take care of your team and its members, you will be fine. People have short memories when they are happy.

The caution, however, lies in the one-off incidents that may have some persistence. These can play on either side of the friendship spectrum. On one side, you may have helped out a co-worker b y picking up his slack, and now you have an especially close relationship. On the other, you may have played an unappreciated practical joke on someone with whom you are less than friendly. Either way, you need to address the event with that individual, redirect toward the current situation, and move on.

Watch your back

You will face the perils of the ?it should have been me? phenomenon. There may, after all, be members of your team who were either in contention for or who think they should have been in contention for your new position. These people could, as part of their agenda, have a desire to see you fail.

Identify this situation early and neutralize it. This could be as simple as giving the person something of high visibility to do, and working with them to prepare for the next round of promotion. In the worst cases where the team member is unable or unwilling to embrace a productive approach, it may require disciplinary action or personnel moves. Establish your authority, but also let key management people know what you are doing. No matter the solution, you need to insulate the team from the potential viral demotivation that these people emit.

Avoid the extremes

The tendency of many new leaders is to gravitate to the polar hard or soft extremes. They either try to stay a buddy or become the Uber Enforcer who gives no quarter. Neither of these styles works particularly well; and in both situations, the new leader slowly moves to the rational center as a working necessity.

When stepping into a leadership role, it is always best to start on the middle ground. Identify the important items that you need to manage closely and ensure compliance. Balance this by finding areas where you can apply your own judgment. Show your team that you are firm, but fair; and that you can make your decisions with compassion and understanding of their needs, and they will accept you in your new role.

Practice consistency

As a general rule, the people that you lead expect equality with their peers. As leader, you are the mechanism that provides this equality. You team will notice impropriety, no matter how small or subtle. Since you are one who came from the ranks, they will be especially perceptive in noticing if you coddle old friends or extract retribution on enemies,

You must treat everyone with the same respect and hold him or her to the same expectations. This behavior ? more than any other -- will establish a sense of fairness within your team. Establish a standard and stick to it.

Make new friends

Leadership is often a lonely business. As you work your way up the ladder, you often have to leave behind some of the friendships that you forged with the members of teams of which you were a part. Maintaining close relationship conflicts with your duties or it could be that you just have less in common than you used to. No matter the reason, it can be isolating.

You need to realize that you have a new set of peers and reach out to them. It will help them to accept you and see you as an equal. Leadership is a lot less lonely when you have colleagues with whom you can share experiences, tough scenarios and gripes about you situation. With your team, this would be suicide; with your peer group it represents an opportunity for bonding and individual growth. It can also help you to avoid corporate land mines.

In the end, promotion is a great thing. Becoming a leader is an amazing opportunity. You have a chance to grow as an individual, and to play an integral role in having a team reach its full potential. It will not always be easy, but if you manage the ascent correctly, you will end up a better person and a more effective member of your organization.