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

by Julie Zhuo

Hey, I noticed that when you use your phone in meetings, it’s distracting because it suggests that the meeting isn’t worth paying attention to. Can we agree to no phones in the future?

I’ve decided to go with somebody else to lead this initiative …

Own the decision. Be firm, and don’t open it up for discussion.

The problem was, if nothing my report said could convince me to change my mind, it’s insincere to act as if she had had a say.

When you give feedback or make a decision, your report may not agree with it. That’s okay. Keep in mind that some decisions are yours to make.

You are the person ultimately held accountable for the output of your team, and you may have more information or a different perspective on the right path forward.

Managing through consensus may feel like a good idea because you won’t offend anyone, but I can’t think of a single influential leader who hasn’t had to go out on a limb...

Acknowledge the disagreement respectfully, then move on. “I recognize that you may not agree with my decision, but I’m asking for...

what I’ve learned about giving feedback—even the most difficult feedback—is that peopl...

No report has ever said to me, “Please treat me with kid gloves.” Instead, they say: “I want your feedback to help me improve.” They tell me, “I’d ...

“It’s brutally hard to tell people when they are screwing up,

‘If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.’ Now all of a sudden it’s your job to say it. You’ve got to undo a lifetime of training.

Every relationship is different, so the frequency, style, and type of feedback that works for one person might not work for someone else.

No matter what happens, the skills your team members develop are theirs for life.

“Feedback is a gift.” It costs time and effort to share, but when we have it, we’re better off. So let’s give it generously.

Convinced that I had suddenly transformed into a weepier and less capable person, I asked my manager Chris if I could get an executive coach. That’s how I was first introduced to Stacy McCarthy.

Stacy listened calmly until I was done. Then she said, “We’ll get to all that later, but first, why don’t we take a step back? Tell me about you.

But Stacy persisted. She asked me about my past and the road I’d taken to get here.

We talked about the future—the way, way future—where she asked me to picture myself at eighty, sitting on a beach and looking back on my life.

What did I want to ...

Then she asked me if I would be okay with her interviewing several people who...

Two weeks later at our next meeting, she showed up with a twenty-pag...

At that moment, feeling so ungrounded and unsure of myself, I struggled to read the report.

the truth is that most of us aren’t very good actors. People know. They see the faults that you don’t want to admit, like how my anxiety was leading to wishy-washy decisions.

But they’re also kinder to you than you might imagine. I remember tearing up reading comments about how I was kicking ass in ways that I wasn’t giving myself credit for.

Looking back, that twenty-page report was one of the best things that ...

Once I knew where I stood, I could start moving forward.

Being a great manager is a highly personal journey, and if you don’t have a good handle on yourself, you won’t have a good handle on how to best support your team.

No matter what obstacles you face, you first need to get deep with knowing you—your strengths, your values, your comfort zones...

When you fully understand yourself, you’ll know where you...

EVERYBODY FEELS LIKE AN IMPOST...

Every manager feels like an imposter sometimes. Every manager was once new, stumbling through interviews and 1:1s and awkward conversations.

“Ask any new manager about the early days of being a boss—indeed,1 ask any senior executive to recall how he or she felt as a new manager. If you get an honest answer, you’ll hear a tale of disorientation and, for some, overwhelming confusion.

It felt too big for any one person to handle.

you’re often looked to for answers.

received emotional inquiries from people about countless decisions that I didn’t make myself but that I still had to explain.

you are constantly put in the position of doing things you haven’t done before. For example, say you have to fire someone.

You can’t just snap your fingers and say, “I’m going to practice firing a lot of people this month.”

You must actually go through the real thing in order to gain the experience you need.

GET TO BRUTAL HONESTY WITH YOURSELF

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

great management typically comes from playing to your strengths rather than from fixing your weaknesses.

StrengthsFinder 2.0 by Tom Rath or StandOut by Ma...

calibration, which is making sure that the view we have of ourselves matches reality.

What opportunities do you see for me to do more of what I do well? What do you think are the biggest things holding me back from having greater impact?

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?

On our last project together, in what ways did you see me having impact? What do you think I could have done to have more impact?

what am I doing well that you’d like to see me do more of? What should I stop doing?

One of the things I’m working on is being more decisive. How do you think I’m doing on that? Any suggestio...

the breakthrough came when I realized I needed to change my mindset. If I saw every challenge as a test of my worthiness, then I’d constantly worry about where I stood rather than how I could improve.