My company recently went through a reorganization on the advice of a consultant. They flattened the organization and require that all managers have at least 5 reports.
I was converted from a manager to an individual contributor despite being recognized as a high performer.
Additionally, me and my two reports were moved under a new boss who has little knowledge of my area so that she would have the 5 required reports. This was purely to make the math work and not strategic.
My new boss shared that I can continue to manage my team as I've been doing. I feel conflicted about this. I've spent a lot of time coaching and mentoring my team and have seen them both improve dramatically. I don't want to let them down but I also don't feel motivated to spend a lot of my time on them now.
I also feel strange about continuing to delegate work to my former team even though my new boss and my team seem to be open to it.
All of this is making it hard to see a path forward with this company.
I know several other high performers at my company who are in a similar situation. I'm struggling to see what the expected benefits of this reorg are?
The company is doing well financially. I don't think they are trying to push people out (they actually laid off people as part of the reorg). Anyone have any experience with this?
My past experience as a 'team lead'
I've been in structures where distributing work assignments ('managing work') was split off from handling personnel ('managing people'). That works well when there's plenty of experienced folks to distribute and do the underlying work, and fewer who have to handle having direct reports and writing their reviews.
One of those orgs I was in, did it this way because few people were willing to take on wrangling other people, and Manager Tools wasn't yet around to help those few become better as fast as the org needed more from its growth.
Another was purely to squeeze out an excess of managers by converting them back into individual contributors, with an eye to future growth.
Maybe try becoming your new manager's number-two?
Can you articulate what about this situation prompts the apparent demotivation? Is it just 'coping with an apparently unnecessary change', or something more strategic in your own life and professional development?
In reply to My past experience as a 'team lead' by Joseph Beckenbach
Motivation
It's not motivating because it feels like a demotion when I'm consistently recognized as a high performer. I spent a lot of time mentoring my team. Now I'm not sure to what degree I should continue doing so.
I will still handle work delegation and some supervision of my old team. That doesn't look like it will change.
I'm just not sure how much time I want to spend or even should spend on feedback and mentoring.
In reply to Motivation by Jeff Zero
"High performer" at what, though?
Early on in my career, I was a definite high performer -- just not in management or in anything else requiring me to exhibit reliable people skills. (Pretty typical for a deeply technical engineer.) Worked hard to correct a few flaws which kept me in that particular pigeon-hole. I later became known for mentoring juniors in: technical skills, technical leadership, training, organizing teams, and communication skills. This before any direct reports.
The times I lost motivation came from the organization being changed around me, often without context. A few times it was strategic shifts (well-communicated or not); a few others it was newly-promoted/recruited "managers" who let power go to their heads, and had better "air cover" than me and my teams; once it was being on the receiving end of outright internal fraud. After the first few times, I learned to talk confidentially along back-channels, to at least let others know something was up, and get a sense of what the issue was and how widespread or deep. Oh, and of course to have solid visible results in-role and in-group to back up my credibility.
If you trust your new boss (or another step or two up the chain), talk it through. Might be some relevant context you don't have yet.
High-performing at managing people or doing the work?
I did plenty of mentoring too as a team lead -- mostly technical stuff (the work and wrangling the work), but some soft skills and manager-prep (the people and wrangling the people). Got "high performer" recognition for both, though understandably I was better known for the technical side.
Keep building up your relationships with those up your chain of authority -- your boss and his boss and so on -- so you can get insights on future plans. You're still able to exercise those "manager" skills even though it's not formally acknowledged in the current setup. If the org grows, especially under your boss (or you!), you'll be needed and available for recognizably managerial duties. Visibly so, if you're #2 for your boss.
I hope the flattening didn't mean you also lost salary. That, without other mitigating circumstances, would demotivate many people.
Relatable
I can relate to the OP's problem. I have faced the same situation before where I used to mentor my team mates & offer a consultancy for the clients as well. But for some reasons, I have to step down the trole as well. From that day, I decided to fulfull & complete my work & not to interfere with other perosn's work!