Making of a Manager - My Story
The most practical management guide I have read till date. I have been using it for the last 3 years. It has helped me both professionally and personally to grow as a leader and a person.
I still remember when I was looking for a book on leadership and management in a shop in Hong Kong in 2019 and one of the sales guys/shopkeeper (a young guy) recommended this book very strongly to me. I was impressed with his confidence and bought the book. The book had just released a few months back and I had just taken a new role to lead a team in a demanding environment.
Back in the fall of 2019, I was given an opportunity to lead the team I was working in. It was the Team Leader role for our Client Services Team. I was an individual contributor at the time. We didn't have a manager for our team back then. And I didn't manage a team this big (about nine engineers) before so I knew it would be tough. I decided to take some time to think it over.
After a few days, I decided to take the challenge, confirmed with my manager and accepted the new role. Thanks also to the encouragement of my manager at the time, Mats. He trusted my abilities. And he really felt if given the responsibility I would do a good job leading and managing the team.
Looking back now, I can say honestly it was the right decision.
But the initial months were not easy. There were days when I had very difficult conversations with some of the team members on setting clear expectations and aligning on some of the tasks and processes. Giving critical feedback or doing performance reviews were also not easy, initially. Also some of my team members were senior to me in experience and age and were also technically brilliant individual contributors. So they won't agree easily on a lot of things. (in hindsight I can say now all those disagreements were great)
I was clearly struggling with the new role. Trying hard to prove myself and controlling things the way I wanted. Maybe it was the insecurity of the new role (call it the imposter syndrome) or just the pressure of being seen as a great leader. No matter what I was a bit miserable and needed help.
My manager Mats was there to guide me. But the problem was I was not sharing my struggles and challenges with him. Partly because I didn’t want to bother him. And to be honest I didn’t want to sound like I was struggling, or I can’t handle things on my own. I think this is the problem with every new manager or leader. In their heads they think they are good enough to handle every thing on their own. And feel insecure to open up to their managers about their struggles and seek guidance.
But I definitely needed some help and guidance. So I turned to some other resource which came in the form of a great book.
The book that helped me navigate these challenges is The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You by Julie Zhou. I've had tremendous insights and learnings from the book, since 2019. I have revisited this book many times (especially some of the chapters like Leading a Small Team, The Art of Feedback and Managing Yourself). And each time it has refreshed my thinking and reframed how I saw myself and others. There are many practical advice and ideas which I have applied time and again in my managerial journey. Calibrated to suit my team’s needs and challenges at different times.
Some of the best things that the book helped me with are:
Mindset Shift - It helped me get into the right mindset to approach my team and the various day-to-day problems ( be it people or process problems) we encountered. The idea of influencing people without authority is what helped the most. Just because I have become the manager people won’t automatically follow me. I needed to digest this and make the necessary mindset shift. It didn't happen overnight but gradually.
The definition of Management Julie provided stuck with me too.
”The crux of management: It is the belief that a team of people can achieve more than a single person going it alone. It is the realization that you don’t have to do everything yourself, be the best at everything yourself, or even know how to do everything yourself. Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together. It’s from this simple definition that everything else flows.”
Right Conversations and Transparency - It helped me start the right and honest conversations with my team members. Which then led to the building of trust and better collaboration among the team members. By being transparent and owning my mistakes I was able to show the team I could be wrong too. And people started trusting me more. Difficult conversations and feedback also became relatively easier.
Genuine Approach - It taught me the principles of caring for the team. So when I approached team members I ensured I’m genuinely thinking about their growth, career development and started giving honest feedback in a way it helped them. They needed to believe my intention was to help them. Something that inspired them to change their behavior which would result in their life getting better. It took me time and patience and consistency to master this.
Aspire something beyond the job and projects - It is your job to understand you are ultimately working with people. So aspire to build long term relationships and care about people. As Julie mentions in the book, “Strive to be Human, not a Boss”. Respect and care for your reports goes a long way in establishing lifelong connections.
Self-Discovery and Confidence - More than anything else, it helped me understand myself better. It took me some time to realize managing a team is a process of self-discovery and truly understanding what you want from the role. Once I understood that I think it became a lot easier. It gave me the confidence I needed to overcome my imposter syndrome. And more importantly it taught me to really be a manager and leader I’ve to really believe it and trust myself.
The other important chapter on the Art of giving Feedback has been a great help.
For a leader, giving feedback—both when things are going well and when they aren’t—is one of the most fundamental aspects of the job. Mastering this skill means that you can knock down two of the biggest barriers preventing your reports from doing great work—unclear expectations and inadequate skills—so that they know exactly where to aim and how to hit the target.
The advantage of giving feedback when things are going well helps to make people understand you genuinely care for them. And you are not waiting to only discuss things when things are going wrong. The critical feedbacks are also effective and works when feedbacks are regular. ( i.e. praise and encouragement when things are going well and honest critical feedback when things need to improve). Because people are smart and understand your intentions if you are genuine.
The benefits of these learning's translated to true understanding of what it really takes to lead a team. The more I learned the basic principles of managing a team the more I knew I have to manage myself a little better in order to get the best out of the team.
The other important chapters this book has are:
Amazing Meetings
Hiring Well
Making things Happen
Leading a Growing Team
Nurturing Culture
These chapters are all great depending on which stage of your management journey you are at. And which management issues you want to address first.
This book is a must read for every new manager. And also great for mid managers who might be struggling with leading their teams. Or individual contributors who aspire to become good managers/leaders one day.
No matter you lead a team of five people or a team of fifty. Whether you are in IT Infrastructure/Services, Software Development, Design or any domain or demanding industry with people responsibilities. This book is for you.
There are many insights that you will find very useful. I highly recommend you get a copy and use this wise, practical book to master purpose, people, and process toward being a great manager. You won’t get results overnight. But I’d advise you to adjust and use the frameworks, examples and advice shared in the book to your needs and situations. And be patient and consistent with your approach. You would see positive results for sure.
To sum up and leave you with my favorite quote from the book ~
" 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, your blind spots, and your biases. When you fully understand yourself, you’ll know where your true north lies."
No matter how personal this journey is you will always need some great mentors and managers to support you. And I’ve been fortunate enough that I had some amazing managers in my journey also. I would like to thank all my managers and mentors who helped me throughout my career so far. Starting with Samudra, Michael, Emily, Francis, Mats, Richard and Chris. They were instrumental in my success in many ways and their advice and guidance also helped me become a better manager.
