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

by Julie Zhuo

Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together.

The first big part of your job as a manager is to ensure that your team knows what success looks like and cares about achieving it.

mind reading is not a core human competency.

Your role is to improve the purpose, people, and process of your team to get as high a multiplier effect on your collective outcome as you can.

the role isn’t likely to suit you if what you aspire for in a workday is long, uninterrupted blocks of quiet focus.

Can I Provide Stability for an Emotionally Challenging Situation?

the best outcomes come from inspiring people to action, not telling them what to do.

great managers should cultivate leadership not just in themselves but also within their teams.

while the role of a manager can be given to someone (or taken away), leadership is not something that can be bestowed. It must be earned. People must want to follow you.

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

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.

Is it a matter of motivation or skill?

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

“Would you work for your manager again?”

supporting and caring for someone doesn’t mean always agreeing with them or making excuses for their mistakes.

If your report feels that your support and respect are based on her performance, then it will be hard for her to be honest with you when things are rocky. If, on the other hand, she feels that you care about her no matter what, and nothing can change that—not even failure—then you will get honesty in return.

People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel,

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

“Vulnerability sounds like truth and feels like courage.4 Truth and courage aren’t always comfortable, but they’re never weakness.”

We humans are wired to see the bad more clearly than the good.

Don’t let the worst performers dominate your time

What I later realized is that the team actually becomes better off when brilliant assholes leave. Yes, you lose out on their individual contributions, but the fog lifts for everyone else.

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.

if you don’t believe someone is set up to succeed in his current role, the kindest thing you can do is to be honest with him and support him in moving on.

Avoid shuffling around people who lack the right skills or who exhibit toxic behavior.

Praise is often more motivating than criticism.

Does he make decisions quickly or slowly? Is he a process wizard or an unconventional thinker? Does he gravitate toward pragmatic or idealistic solutions?

Behavioral feedback helps people understand the reality of how others see them, which may be different than how they see themselves.

It’s impossible to expect perfection. We are only human. Failures will occur, projects will miss deadlines, and people will make mistakes. That’s okay. But when these things happen, readjusting expectations as quickly as possible helps people recover from errors with grace.

Does my feedback lead to the change I’m hoping for?

What you intend to say and what the listener hears are not always the same.

Add to that the listener’s confirmation bias—our tendency to recall things that confirm preexisting beliefs

When people are in the grip of a threat response, they’re less capable of absorbing and applying your observations.” The best way to make your feedback heard is to make the listener feel safe, and to show that you’re saying it because you care about her and want her to succeed.

Be clear about whether you’re setting an expectation or merely offering a suggestion.

if you’re always dictating what should happen next, you’re not empowering your team to learn to solve problems on their own.

The best way to give critical feedback is to deliver it directly and dispassionately. Plainly say what you perceive the issue to be, what made you feel that way, and how you’d like to work together to resolve the concern.

“I recognize that you may not agree with my decision, but I’m asking for your cooperation in moving forward.”

“I’d like you to be honest and direct with me.”

I’m more comfortable in small groups than big ones. I care deeply about understanding first principles. I am more articulate in writing than in person. I need time alone to reflect and process new facts before forming an opinion. I skew toward long-term thinking, which means that I sometimes make impractical short-term decisions. And at the end of the day, nothing gives me more satisfaction than learning and growing.

The first part in understanding how you lead is to know your strengths—the things you’re talented at and love to do.

Triggers occupy the space between your growth area and somebody else’s

Part of the reason bias exists is that our brains are wired to take shortcuts so we can arrive at faster conclusions.

when we picture ourselves doing something, the same parts of our brain are engaged as if we were actually doing that activity.

The group who went to the gym every day increased their muscle strength by 30 percent; the group who ran through the workout in their heads increased their strength by 13.5 percent—almost half the benefit!

Admitting your struggles and asking for help is the opposite of weakness—in fact, it shows courage and self-awareness.

You can’t do your best work unless you physically feel your best, so take care of yourself.

I practiced and got better. There were years of stammering awkwardly in front of my team during weekly meetings.

a mentor is—someone who shares her expertise to help you improve.

part of working well together is placing trust in decision-makers and in a fair process.

Too much time is spent trying to get a group to consensus rather than escalating quickly to a decision-maker.