Being the Boss, with a New Preface: The 3 Imperatives for Becoming a Great Leader

by Linda A. Hill

Manage Yourself—Trust is the foundation of great leadership, the glue that holds people together through challenging times. In order to inspire trust in the people you lead, you need to understand how they experience you; people need to see your competence and character. Leadership is about being present and matching your intent with your impact, goals elusive to those who are

not self-aware and willing to learn how to manage themselves.

Manage Your Network—Only by building a web of reciprocal relationships with people inside and outside your organization—people over whom you have no formal authority but on whom you are deeply dependent—can you ensure that you and your team will have the knowledge and resources that you need. Leadership is as much about interdependency (with subordinates, peers, sup...

Manage Your Team—It is no longer enough to have people who play on your team; you need the people who report to you to play as a team. Unleashing the talents of your team and getting them to work together means that you must develop people, both individually and collectively. If you neglect this imperative, you can’t delegate and leverage yourself; you won’t have the time or energy required to manage the other two. Leadership is not simply getting every one-on-one ...

Good is not good enough; great is what is needed.

Becoming an effective manager is difficult because of the great gulf that separates the work of management from the work of individual performers.

Second, becoming an effective manager requires that you not only acquire new skills and knowledge but also undergo difficult personal change.

the people for whom you're responsible need you to keep going.

you cannot achieve your own aspirations if you don't keep making progress.

To carry out this responsibility, you must influence others, which means you must make a difference not only in what they do but in the thoughts and feelings that drive their actions.

Many managers think they manage the work. They don't. They're responsible for the work, but they get work done by influencing the people who do the work.

The effective manager's 3 imperatives Manage yourself Manage your network Manage your team

manage yourself deals with changes required in how you think about yourself and your role, how you relate to others as a boss, and especially how you try to influence others.

Manage your team is about building a high-performance team that's more than the sum of the individuals involved.

The problem is that most people don't want your authority to be the be-all and end-all of the relationship. They want a personal, human connection, an emotional link. They want you to care about them as individuals. They want you to encourage their growth and development. Research tells us this kind of human relationship with the boss is a key factor determining an employee's level of engagement with the work.2

You need more than people's simple compliance. You need them to be engaged with their work and want to do it well.

The most effective managers are driven by a strong need to have an impact on others—not for their own satisfaction or selfaggrandizement but to achieve the goals of the group.6

To Maintain Group Standards and Norms You may need to step in when your group is about to violate or ignore some important element of group culture—group values, standards, and norms, such as quality, meeting a deadline, fairness, openness to all points of view, and recognizing the rights and requirements of other groups. This can happen when pressures mount to take shortcuts or skip steps or simply choose a more expedient course.

“The test of a [manager] is not how good he is at bossing,” she wrote, “but how little bossing he has to do.”9

To confuse being liked with being trusted or respected is a classic trap for all managers.

If you try to stay on good terms with everyone, you'll make exceptions for individuals that others consider undeserved or unfair.

Bosses and direct reports are not equals inside the organization. Even if the boss keeps her stick of authority hidden most of the time, she will still need to use it on occasion in ways that may not please her subordinates. Not many friendships can survive such status inequality when that happens.

Friends Accept Each Other as They Are

Friends don't actively evaluate and try to ch...

Yet an effective manager must constantly assess his people's performance and abilities and press them to develop and change. Such benevolent but real pressure is...

If you choose work and the work group over the wishes of a friend, as eventually and inevitably you must, the friend will feel betrayed.

Sooner or later you must decide against, disappoint, criticize, discipline, demote, or even fire someone who works for you. To someone who thought you were friends, those actions will feel like a personal betrayal and will damage or destroy that person's commitment to the work.

the boss–subordinate relationship is another paradox, one of the most profound you will encounter as a boss. It's a paradox because it must be genuinely human and caring—even close, since you and your people strive toward a common, worthwhile purpose.1 But it must remain a relationship that never loses sight of one fact: it exists to accomplish work.

You and they need to be friendly—no one will work hard for a cold, distant, uncaring jerk—but ultimately not friends in the true sense of the word.

Still, we maintain, it is possible to care deeply while focusing on the work.

It works best as a cordial, genuinely caring relationship, but it's not about the relationship. It should be an open, positive relationship, but one in which there is ultimately some distance, a line never crossed. If you create relationships in which the primary goal is to sustain the relationship rather than do work, you will be creating a trap that sooner or later will snare you.

You must take responsibility for defining the relationship, for setting limits or boundaries that keep all your relationships focused on the work and its successful accomplishment.

may help to remind yourself that friendship is not the goal.

caring, human, but always with a little distance, and always focused on the group and its work.

Whether it's called trust, respect, reputation, or credibility, it all comes down to whether people believe they can count on you to do the right thing.1

People's belief in your competence as a manager People's belief in your character as a person

Technical competence is about what you know. Operational competence is about knowing how to apply it.

Political competence is about knowing who does what and how to influence them.

Character is about believing in and following a set of values. It's about possessing an internal compass.

We define trust as people's belief that you will do the right thing. But the right thing isn't always obvious, and people will vary in their definition of it.

empathy isn't about putting yourself in someone else's position. It means seeing through their eyes based on their experience, needs, and values.

Active listening means you engage with someone, ask questions, and proactively explore what they're saying.

you handle your own feelings well at work? Your reactions must always be constructive, forward looking, and in the best interests of the group.

“Be like a duck—on the surface calm and serene and underneath paddle like hell.”

Do people consider you discreet? As a manager, you often receive sensitive and personal information from your people. Can they count on you to keep it private and use it with tact and prudence? Do you hold yourself above gossip within your group?

Managing the feelings of others doesn't mean you must simply put up with others' feelings.

Sometimes simple acknowledgement of a person's feelings and allowing him to talk are enough. Of course, you need not condone behavior that exceeds the bounds of respect, civility, and decency.

Without doubt, much of it—both the negative and the positive—is aimed at you as boss, at the role you play, and not at you personally.

you have to have toughness, a strong sense of who you are and what you're about. When you get whacked, you keep coming back. You can do that because you're focused on the work and what you and your team have to do.”

strong ego is resilient because it's focused on something outside itself, such as the work and its ultimate purpose. A big ego seldom cares about anything but itself.