The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You

by Julie Zhuo

management is the art of getting a group of people to work together to achieve better outcomes.

As a manager, you are judged on your team’s outcomes, so your job is to do whatever most helps them succeed.

A major part of your responsibility is ensuring that the individuals you support are able to thrive. This means that listening to and talking with them are a core part of the job.

beware the trap of obligation. “I should” and “I can” are not sufficient reasons. Do you really want to?

If you’re not sure that management is the right path for you, there are things you can do to get a better feel for it, like mentoring other folks on the team, taking on an intern, or interviewing managers who have recently transitioned to understand what their experiences were like.

Leadership, on the other hand, is the particular skill of being able to guide and influence other people.

If you can pinpoint a problem and motivate others to work with you to solve it, then you’re leading.

What will be my scope to start, and how do you expect it to change over time? How will my transition be communicated? What do I need to know about the people that I’ll be managing? What important team goals or processes should I be aware of and help push forward? What does success look like in my first three and six months? How can the two of us stay aligned on who does what?

list of all the things that are awesome about the current state of the world. Does everyone get along? Are your processes efficient? Is your team known for rigorous and high-quality work? Now, next to that, create a list of all the things that could be better. Is your team cagey about deadlines? Does it seem like priorities are always shifting? Is there that one really long weekly meeting nobody wants to attend?

sometimes uncomfortable asking a friend or former peer, “What do you want to be working toward in a year’s time?” or “What do you consider your strengths?”

at the point in which your team becomes four or five people, you should have a plan for how to scale back your individual contributor responsibilities so that you can be the best manager for your people.

Organizations rarely hire untested managers to oversee already established teams.

you have a window of time, usually about three months, when everyone recognizes that you’re the new kid on the block.

You start with a blank slate.

What did you and your past manager discuss that was most helpful to you? What are the ways in which you’d like to be supported? How do you like to be recognized for great work? What kind of feedback is most useful for you?

Few things are more annoying than a new person wasting everyone else’s time because they are trying to prove they know something when their opinion isn’t actually informed.

What keeps you up at night? Why?

As a new boss with a new team, you’re back to square one when it comes to establishing trust.

Your first three months as a new manager are a time of incredible transition. By the end of it, the day-to-day starts to feel familiar—you’re

A manager’s job is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together through influencing purpose, people, and process.

Why would someone not be motivated to do great work? One possible answer is that he doesn’t have a clear picture of what great work looks like. Another possibility is that the role doesn’t speak to his aspirations; he can, but he’d rather be doing something else. Or perhaps he thinks nothing will change if he puts in more effort—there will be no rewards if things improve, and no penalties if they don’t, so why bother?

First, discuss whether your expectations are aligned—does “great work” mean the same thing for both of you? Then discuss whether it’s a matter of motivation. If both of those don’t resolve your concerns, then dive in to whether the issue is with skills.

you are your reports’ boss. You have more impact on their day-to-day than they have on yours.

One of my teammates shared with me a simple litmus test for assessing the health of her relationships: If she asks her report how things are going and the answer for multiple weeks is “Everything is fine,” she takes it as a sign to prod further.

It takes repeated good experiences to build up to a level of trust where you can be vulnerable and compassionately critical with each other.

In anonymous surveys to track team health, some companies explicitly ask the question, “Would you work for your manager again?” If your organization doesn’t do this, simply reflecting on the question can be useful. For each report, can you say with confidence that he or she would want to be on your team again? If you aren’t sure that the answer is yes, it’s probably no

You can also get an approximate reading by asking your report, “What are the qualities of a perfect manager for you?” and evaluating how you compare to the description you get back.

managing is caring.” If you don’t truly respect or care about your report, there is no faking it. Trust me, they know.

It’s easy to like and have a great relationship with someone who is kicking ass. The harder test is, what happens when she struggles?

I recommend no less than a weekly 1:1 with every report for thirty minutes, and more time if needed.

what motivates him, what his long-term career aspirations are, how he’s generally feeling about his work, and more. One-on-ones should be focused on your report and what would help him be more successful, not on you and what you need. If you’re looking for a status update, use another channel.

Here are some ideas to get started: Discuss top priorities: What are the one, two, or three most critical outcomes for your report and how can you help her tackle these challenges? Calibrate what “great” looks like: Do you have a shared vision of what you’re working toward? Are you in sync about goals or expectations? Share feedback: What feedback can you give that will help your report, and what can your report tell you that will make you more effective as a manager? Reflect on how things are going: Once in a while, it’s useful to zoom out and talk about your report’s general state of mind—how is he feeling on the whole? What’s making him satisfied or dissatisfied? Have any of his goals changed? What has he learned recently and what does he want to learn going forward?

Your job as a manager isn’t to dole out advice or “save the day”—it’s to empower your report to find the answer herself. She has more context than you on the problems she’s dealing with, so she’s in the best position to uncover the solution. Let her lead the 1:1 while you listen and probe.

What’s top of mind for you right now? What priorities are you thinking about this week? What’s the best use of our time today?

What do you really care about? What do you think is the best course of action? What’s the worst-case scenario you’re worried about?

How can I help you?

If you think he is the epitome of awesome, tell him. If you don’t think he is operating at the level you’d like to see, he should know that, too, and precisely why you feel that way.

people will never forget how you made them feel, goes the popular saying.

When we are going through tough times, the thing that’s often the most helpful isn’t advice or answers but empathy.

As a manager, my attention is similarly drawn toward the problem spots. I’m usually focused on the designs that aren’t quite there, the projects that are slipping behind schedule, or the teams that have hiring needs. Whenever I’m talking with my reports, it’s easy to spend all our time on the things that need improvement.

Recognition for hard work, valuable skills, helpful advice, or good values can be hugely motivating if it feels genuine and specific.

“There is one quality that sets truly great managers apart from the rest: they discover what is unique about each person and then capitalize on it,”

should you pay attention to your team’s top talent—the people who are doing well and could be doing even better. Don’t let the worst performers dominate your time—try to diagnose, address, and resolve their issues as swiftly as you can. This is counterintuitive because your strongest reports aren’t likely asking for your help.

We’ve already discussed the main reasons why someone might not be doing great work: they aren’t aware of what “great” looks like, their aspirations aren’t a fit with what the role needs, they don’t feel appreciated, they lack the skills, or they bring others down.

Similarly, if your report has a fundamental skills gap that is affecting her ability to do the job well, it’s unreasonable to expect that even the best coaching will turn things around within a few months. A report of mine whom we’ll call Sarah had a knack for putting out thoughtful designs but struggled to stay organized. She operated best in highly structured environments that offered strong project management support; however, at our organization, we take a bottom-up approach where all employees are expected to manage their own time effectively. In that context, Sarah would often miss deadlines or forget about assignments she’d agreed to take on.

When you decide to let someone go, do it respectfully and directly. Don’t open it up to discussion (it isn’t one), and don’t regard it as a failure on the part of your report.

The first thing she’ll do after introductions is sit down with you to discuss your goals. Then, she’ll tell you what you should expect from training and how you can make the most of it.

What a great job looks like for your report, compared to a mediocre or bad job What advice you have to help your report get started on the right foot Common pitfalls your report should avoid

Give Task-Specific Feedback as Frequently as You Can

This is the easiest type of feedback to give because it’s focused on the what rather than the who, so it feels less personal.