The Making of a Manager

Management is a Journey of Self-Discovery

Julie Zhuo emphasizes that management is an evolving journey rather than a fixed skill set. She shares her own experience of transitioning to a managerial role, highlighting the self-doubt and lack of preparedness new managers often face. Zhuo underscores that management is a learned and continuously developed practice, requiring self-awareness and adaptability. 'You have no idea what you’re doing,' she admits, capturing the essence of the initial managerial experience.

Trust as the Foundation of Managerial Relationships

Trust is crucial in any manager-report relationship. Zhuo stresses the importance of fostering honest, constructive conversations and creating an environment where team members feel safe to share their challenges. 'Trust is the most important ingredient,' she asserts, highlighting that open communication and mutual respect are key to addressing issues promptly and maintaining a healthy work environment.

The Multiplicative Effect of Teamwork

Effective management is about achieving superior outcomes through collective effort. Zhuo explains that a well-coordinated team under effective management will significantly outperform individual efforts. 'Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together,' she notes, emphasizing the importance of team cohesion and collective achievements over individual contributions.

The Art of Feedback

Frequent and balanced feedback is essential for a productive work environment. Zhuo advises managers to provide both positive reinforcement and constructive criticism regularly. 'Give feedback more often and remind yourself that you’re probably not doing it enough,' she suggests, emphasizing the need for clear, actionable feedback that leads to improvement and growth.

Embrace Delegation for Leadership Strength

Delegation is a sign of trust and a crucial aspect of effective management. Zhuo highlights the importance of empowering team members by giving them significant challenges to tackle. 'There is no greater sign of trust than handing your report an intricately tangled knot that you believe she can pull apart,' she states, underscoring that proper delegation fosters growth and innovation within the team.

Creating a Shared Vision

A clear and inspiring vision is essential for team alignment and motivation. Zhuo argues that a tangible vision provides a shared sense of purpose and measurable goals. 'An inspiring vision is bold. It doesn’t hedge,' she asserts, using Mark Zuckerberg's goal of connecting the world as an example of a clear and ambitious target that drives team efforts.

The Real Role of a Manager

Zhuo redefines the manager’s role as building a cohesive team, supporting individual career goals, and creating efficient processes. She argues that effective management goes beyond daily tasks to focus on long-term objectives. 'Build a team that works well together, support members in reaching their career goals, and create processes to get work done smoothly and efficiently,' she advises, emphasizing the broader responsibilities of a manager.

In another ten years, I know I’ll look back and realize that the path I’m on today is still squiggly. There is much left to learn, and I am far from being the manager I aspire to be,” says Zhuo. “But with time, will, and a growth mindset, the lessons ahead are right there for my taking.

Pay attention to your own actions —the little things you say and do— as well as what behaviours you are rewarding and discouraging. All of it works together to tell the story of what you care about and how you believe a great team should work together.

From this, you can extrapolate that anything your report can do just as well or better than you, you should delegate

For the things that you do better than your reports, unless it falls into the ‘most important priorities’ bucket or you don’t believe they are set up to succeed, you should still try to delegate as much as possible and coach them along the way

Setting a vision, hiring leaders, delegating responsibility, and managing communication become the key skills needed to bridge the gap

As a manager, one of the smartest ways to multiply your team’s impact is to hire the best people and empower them to do more and more until you stretch the limits of their capabilities

One exercise I do every January is to map out where I hope my team will be by the end of the year. I create a future org chart, analyze gaps in skills, strengths, or experiences, and make a list of open roles to hire for

This is crucial because great management typically comes from playing to your strengths rather than from fixing your weaknesses

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

I left with a deeper appreciation of both the importance of planning good meetings and the value of giving feedback to improve bad meetings

The follow-ups need to be treated with as much care as the preparation. A single meeting is not an end unto itself; it is a stepping-stone in the much longer path of creating something valuable for the world

It’s a good idea to do this for meetings of any size, even 1:1s, but the larger the meeting, the more important the preparation

How can you achieve stellar 1:1s? The answer is preparation. It’s rare that an amazing conversation springs forth when nobody has a plan for what to talk about.

By the end of it, the day-to-day starts to feel familiar—you’re adapting to new routines, you’re investing in new relationships, and you may begin to have a sense of how you can best support your team

If I asked you, ‘What is the job of a soccer player?’ would you say that it’s to attend practices, pass the ball to their teammates, and attempt to score goals? Of course not, You’d tell me why those activities matter in the first place. You’d say ‘The job of a soccer player is to win games.’”

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

Combine technology and design to solve real customer problems in a way that meets the needs of the business.

Hiring is super critical and should be done very well. “As a manager, one of the smartest ways to multiply your team’s impact is to hire the best people and empower them to do more and more until you stretch the limits of their capabilities”

Ask yourself — what your your key areas of improvements? Do you have enough self-awareness?

Careers are long so think long term when hiring — build great relationships even if the person you want to hire chooses something else now, they are a potential great hire for the future.

Establish a culture where collective learning and resilience are critical. “At the end of the day, a resilient organization is not one that never makes mistakes but rather one whose mistakes make it stronger over time”.

Describe over and over again the world you’d like to see. Try to connect every task, project, description or goal with the organization’s higher purpose

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.

Your success managing others is dependent on how well you can manage yourself.

When managing managers, success becomes more and more about mastering a few key skills: hiring exceptional leaders, building self-reliant teams, establishing a clear vision, and communicating well.

A manager is a specific role. Leadership is the particular skill of being able to guide and influence other people. 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.

A Managers job is to build a team that works well together, support members in reaching their career goals, and create processes to get work done smoothly and efficiently.

My friend Mark Rabkin shared a tip with me that I love: strive for all your one-on-one meetings to feel a little awkward. Why? Because the most important and meaningful conversations have that characteristic. It isn’t easy to discuss mistakes, confront tensions, or talk about deep fears or secret hopes, but no strong relationship can be built on superficial pleasantries alone.

The most precious resource you have is your own time and energy, and when you spend it on your team, it goes a long way toward building healthy relationships. This is why one-on-one meetings (“1:1s” for short) are such an important part of management. I recommend no less than a weekly 1:1 with every report for thirty minutes, and more time if needed.

A group of people working in unison is a wonderful thing to behold. Done well, it ceases to be about you or me, one individual or another. Instead, you feel the energy of dozens or hundreds or even thousands of hearts and minds directed toward a shared purpose, guided by shared values.

The act of constantly trying to replace yourself means that you create openings to stretch both your leaders and yourself. Right ahead is another mountain that’s bigger and scarier than the one before. Everyone keeps climbing, and everyone achieves more together.

The most brilliant plans in the world won’t help you succeed if you can’t bring them to life. Executing well means that you pick a reasonable direction, move quickly to learn what works and what doesn’t, and make adjustments to get to your desired outcome.

When your team is growing swiftly, hiring becomes easily the top one or two most important skills. If you need to build out a large team and you don’t have a strong bench of managers, the problem quickly becomes intractable. You can’t create great outcomes without consistently attracting talented people.

Leo Tolstoy begins Anna Karenina with the statement “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Meetings are much the same.

Learning how to be a great leader means learning about your superpowers and flaws, learning how to navigate the obstacles in your head, and learning how to learn. With these tools comes the confidence that you’re meant to be here just as you are—no masks or pretenses needed.

When something isn’t broken, we accept that it’s good enough, so why say more?” – this is probably one of the worst approaches a manager can take. Giving feedback is a central aspect of management, and not giving it means not caring about your team members.

Imagine you go shopping with your best friend and she comes out in an unflattering green-and-yellow sweater. “How do I look?” she asks you. “Like a caterpillar,” you say. You’re not worried about insulting her because she’s your best friend and she’ll know you said it out of affection rather than spite.

Your first three months as a new manager are a time of incredible transition. By the end of it, the day-to-day starts to feel familiar— you’re adapting to new routines, you’re investing in new relationships, and you may begin to have a sense of how you can best support your team.

Leadership is not something that can be bestowed. It must be earned. People must want to follow you. You can be someone’s manager, but if that person does not trust or respect you, you will have limited ability to influence him.

For managers, important processes to master include running effective meetings, future proofing against past mistakes, planning for tomorrow, and nurturing a healthy culture.

Your role as a manager is not to do the work yourself, even if you are the best at it, because that will only take you so far. 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.

A MANAGER’S JOB IS TO . . . build a team that works well together, support members in reaching their career goals, and create processes to get work done smoothly and efficiently.

Give feedback more often and remind yourself that you’re probably not doing it enough.

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.

When you value something deeply, don’t shy away from talking about it. Instead, embrace telling people why it’s important to you.

Build a team that works well together, support members in reaching their career goals, and create processes to get work done smoothly and efficiently.

You have no idea what you’re doing.

You are no longer trying to get something done by yourself.

The litmus test of whether or not a manager is excelling doesn’t need to be so complex. If the job is defined as getting better outcomes from a group of people working together, then a great manager’s team will consistently achieve great outcomes.

Purpose, people, process. The why, the who, and the how. A great manager constantly asks herself how she can influence these levers to improve her team’s outcomes.

Leadership is a quality rather than a job. We are all leaders and followers at different points in our lives.

Trust is the most important ingredient.

Personal and organizational values play a huge role in whether someone will be happy on a given team.

The kindest thing you can do is to be honest with him and support him in moving on.

Hopefully others will do the same for you. And be up front with people— especially your reports— about the kind of relationship you’d like to build and the kind of manager you want to be

If the outcome you care about is building a thriving lemonade business, then a great manager’s team will turn a higher profit than a mediocre manager’s team. A bad manager loses money, If the outcome you care about is getting amazing design, then a great manager’s team will consistently deliver concepts that wow.

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

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.