I have worked for a solid company for many years, have done good work, been among the top performers, and earned the respect of peers and management. So far I had essentially been an individual contributor, but was recently promoted to a management role, taking on a small team of 5 and substantially more responsibility than before. Expectations of me and my team are high, and I know I wouldn't have been hired if the management didn't think I could be there.

As far as salary, I won't give exact numbers. I can definitely say I've always considered my company to compensate employees well, and certainly above average compared even to industry peers. I've always been paid well, I thought. I've honestly wondered not if, but to what extent, white male privilege has affected me. (I am queer, but white cis.) Can't really say I'd ever had a complaint about or felt undervalued by my compensation. Despite all this, by the way, I am still a millennial with intense student loans, so my higher-than-normal salary helps my family live at a fairly average level.

When I was promoted my salary increase was 15%, and that was the first time I questioned whether my compensation was actually fair or not. Without any real basis, I expected the offer to be higher than it was, but I kind of shrugged it off, grateful what the experience from the position could do for me overall. Although I will say I didn't feel like there was really an opportunity to negotiate the topic of salary, it was very binary, do you accept this offer yes or no?

The team I've taken on is a group of individuals with various skills and experience. Before managing them I worked closely with a number of them, and especially one in particular who is the clear high performer. She's been at the company for a couple years less than me. I'd say (but with confidence my peers would agree) that this high performer and I have always operated at similar levels. We have different methods, but in terms of performance, we were in sync. We both enact change, effect results, and move things forward.

So now as a new manager I find myself having to communicate to my team about bonus payouts and such, the first time I've ever dealt with that. And in reviewing the documents coming from HR, I discovered that the high performer gets paid a lot more than me, 30% more than I was paid before the promotion. She deserves every dime she makes—probably more—but knowing how similarly we performed in the past, and now managing her, I feel like I might have been gipped or undervalued.

A the very least I feel like my salary should be about equal to hers. But I also think that just being her manager, I should get paid more. And it's not about getting paid more than her, but rather about getting paid more than the highest earner on the team. Especially when she and I are both roughly equally strong employees, but now I am accountable for more as a manager with more consequential authority. I can't say exactly why I had that expectation, just thought it was kind of how management worked.

So I'm not sure what to do now. I'm conflicted because I thought I was getting paid pretty well (I actually was), but now I've learned that the company essentially pays others with a similar profile to mine at a different/better rate. And so I feel like I deserve to be at least there, at that rate, but probably higher. Then I am plagued by white male guilt and questions about morality. Am I wrong or ungrateful to feel this way just after I got a 15% salary increase? Who would I talk to about this, my manager or HR? What is even the best way to broach the topic?