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

by Julie Zhuo

The management aspect has nothing to do with employment status and everything to do with the fact that you are no longer trying to get something done by yourself.

With a small team, maintaining a shared sense of purpose is straightforward. You don’t get many crossed wires when your team can still fit around one table. That leaves people and process to focus on.

What gets in the way of good work? There are only two possibilities.1 The first is that people don’t know how to do good work. The second is that they know how, but they aren’t motivated.

Another possibility is that the role doesn’t speak to his aspirations; he can, but he’d rather be doing something else.

First, discuss whether your expectations are aligned—does “great work” mean the same thing for both of you?

If you aren’t sure that the answer is yes, it’s probably no (much like how if you have to ask, “Am I in love?” you’re probably not).

“If the first time he hears that he’s not meeting expectations is during his performance review, it’s going to feel terrible,”

What skills do you think a hypothetical perfect person in my role would have? For each skill, how would you rate me against that ideal on a scale of one to five?

Ask the first one in interviews. If they don't know the answer to the first, they will never be able to answer the second when I join.