This article is written by Katelyn Palmer, Policy Manager, Supply Ontario.
- The problem: Many new managers may lack the time and resources to undertake self-guided learning to help build their leadership knowledge bank.
- Why it matters: Being intentional about learning can create micro-opportunities to pilot innovative leadership practices.
- The solution: I’ve pulled together a list of five leadership book recommendations with a synopsis and a 'call to action' to help simplify a self-guided learning approach.
Have you recently moved from an individual contributor role to a managerial position? If so, the transition may have generated a mix of overwhelm, excitement and a deep desire to be an exceptional people manager. This is how I felt when I moved into my new managerial role. To help prepare for my career change, I explored some big questions centred on ‘how’. How do I want to approach this new role that goes beyond cherry-picking the best of what I know? How will I co-design (with my direct reports) purpose-driven one-on-ones? How can I expand my perspectives on the roles and responsibilities of an effective and empowering manager?
Reading ranks high on my approach to knowledge acquisition. I asked my peers and mentors for book recommendations and discovered a resource gap. “Oh, I don’t have any books to recommend on these topics, but I definitely want to know what you discover.” I heard this repeatedly as I embarked on a self-led reading journey of 15+ managerial and leadership books.
Now, to contribute to a leadership community of best practices and information-sharing, here are my top five book recommendations for those who are new to management. I also believe that these books would be helpful to those interested in leadership, even if not in a formal managerial role.
Book: ‘The Making of a Manager – What to Do When Everyone Looks to You’ by Julie Zhuo
Synopsis: This book places new managers into one of three categories: (1) those who are promoted from within an existing team to a managerial role; (2) those who are external hires to an existing team and; (3) those who will manage net-new teams. While each bucket comes with its own subset of managerial strategies, an overarching theme is that a manager’s role is to develop and lead a group of people towards a shared, common purpose. In this process, it’s important to build a psychologically safe environment where ongoing, multi-directional feedback is actively solicited. Feedback is categorised as either task-specific or behavioural and can be minor or major. With regard to significant feedback, Zhuo encourages against the sandwich approach (positive, constructive, positive). Instead, the author recommends a direct approach in which the feedback is delivered with neutrality and without long preamble. In her experience, the key message (i.e. the constructive feedback) can get lost with the sandwich approach.
Inspired by this book, I invite you to join me in:
- Raising these foundational questions during your one-on-ones with direct reports:
- Imagine that you and I co-designed a highly impactful relationship. What would that look like?
- What do you consider your top three strengths and opportunities for growth?
- Now that I have joined the team, what processes/structures are in place that you hope we maintain? (If it’s a net-new team, ask what processes/structures worked most effectively in previous team environments).
- Building a managerial support network that consists of managers within your organisation and those with similar functional responsibilities outside of your organisation.
- Blocking 15 minutes in the calendar at the end of each week for the first few months to reflect on two wins and a challenge. If this is helpful, keep going!
Book: ‘The New Leader’s 100-Day Action Plan — Take Charge, Build Your Team, and Deliver Better Results Faster’ by George B. Bradt, Jayme A. Check, and John A. Lawler
Synopsis: The authors’ key argument is that the first 100 days will determine whether one succeeds or fails in their new leadership position. Ideally, you’ll want to read this book before Day 1 (i.e. your start date) in that the first two chapters focus on how we can set ourselves up for success in the interview and job offer/acceptance phases. Paramount here is the suggestion to meet the organisation’s key leaders and team in person prior to Day 1 to signal interest and role readiness. Importantly, and counter to what we’re often told (“trust your instincts”), the authors encourage us not to trust our first organisational impressions and instincts. Their perspective is that we need to remind ourselves that we are in a new environment and must exercise controlled and measured thinking to reach more accurate observations. Other topics include the importance of early quick wins and team diagnostics (e.g. an assessment of staff as high performers, effective, or underperformers combined with strategies for improvement based on performance type). This book provides many helpful practical tools, such as checklists, assessments and reflective questions to develop one’s leadership capabilities further.
Inspired by this book, I invite you to join me in:
- Developing a learning plan that focuses on the technical, cultural and political streams. (1) Technical learning: the organisation’s core business functions/services. (2) Cultural learning: behavioural, relationship and attitudinal norms. (3) Political learning: unwritten rules about how decisions are made and who has the power to make them.
- Creating an organisational map of both the (un)official decision-makers as well as key persons of influence.
- Being gentle with yourself. Although this book emphasises the criticality of the first 100 days, much research indicates that it takes at least six months to acclimatise to a new position/organisation.
💬 Let the author know what you think about these book recommendations leaving a comment below
Book: ‘The Performance Paradox – Turning the Power of Mindset into Action’ by Eduardo Briceño
Note: I highly recommend pre-reading Carol Dweck’s 2007 classic, ‘Mindset: The New Psychology of Success’ in that Briceño was a student of Dweck’s at Stanford University and his book builds significantly on the genius of ‘Mindset’.
Synopsis: ‘The Performance Paradox’ provides a detailed roadmap to building a learning culture in which the focus is to lean into mistakes – embrace them, discuss them openly and employ strategies to future-proof against repeating them. Briceño nuances mistakes into four categories: (1) sloppy mistakes: these are not a reflection of our competencies. In fact, we know how to perform in this area, but perhaps due to multi-tasking or a lack of focus, we make careless mistakes; (2) aha mistakes: we develop and execute a plan, and at the project’s end, through reflection or feedback, we see that our approach was not the right one; (3) stretch mistakes: these frequently occur when we expand our skills or try something new. The key here is to reflect and pivot as one perseveres through the process of skills acquisition; and (4) high-stakes mistakes: we want to avoid these types of mistakes as the expectations to deliver excellence are high, and therefore, this is not the time to experiment or try a new approach. Importantly, Briceño notes that mistakes alone do not result in learning. Rather, mistakes in conjunction with individual/collective reflection are critical to sustained and accelerated learning.
**Inspired by this book, I invite you to join me in: **
- Identifying a mistake you made and discussing it with the team to promote collective reflection and learning. Encourage others to share a mistake. If reluctance is high, ask what can be done to foster greater psychological safety in the workplace so that they may be more open to share in the future.
- Each quarter, during a team meeting, ask a different direct report to grade your performance (and provide specific feedback). This will strengthen one’s core managerial muscles of openness to feedback, courage and humility as well as help foster a learning culture.
- Mapping out one to two leadership experiences that are just beyond your comfort zone and creating an action plan to reach them within the first year of becoming a manager.
Book: ‘Leading from the Middle – A Playbook for Managers to Influence Up, Down, and Across the Organization’ by Scott Mautz
Synopsis: The focus of this book is on middle managers – those who have a boss and are a boss – and the many hats they wear, including translator, strategist, catalyst, implementer, resource allocator, synthesiser, intrapreneur, champion, buffer and team builder. Mautz encourages middle managers to leverage their personal power (by being caring, listening attentively, being giving and teaching others) rather than positional power (i.e. titled authority) to influence those up, down, and across the organisation. Based on Mautz’s experience, it’s important for middle managers with new and younger teams to be mindful that direct reports may not know what to ask for, how to approach a project, or what help could look like. The middle manager as coach is important in these dynamics and, in this sense, leading from the middle is both a mindset and a skillset.
**Inspired by this book, I invite you to join me in: **
- Co-designing a matrix of good versus great performance in key vectors (e.g. project-based or competencies such as problem-solving and follow-through) with your boss and also with your direct reports.
- Creating a daily 'to-don’t' list adjacent to your 'to-do' list to foster mindfulness of priorities while reducing distractions of non-priority work items. Items on the 'to-don’t' list may transfer to the 'to-do' list as projects are completed or priorities change.
- Engaging in proactive (and courageous!) conversations with your boss that focus on questions like:
- What should I stop, start and continue to do to set myself or our team up for enhanced success?
- What is an area where my performance is good, and what does great performance look like?
- What do you find overwhelming right now and how may I help?
Book: ‘The Progress Principle: Using Small Wins to Ignite Joy, Engagement and Creativity at Work’ by Steven Kramer and Teresa Amabile
Synopsis: This book introduces the concept of “inner work life” as one’s internal relationship to their workplace. Our attachment to work is never static and is influenced by the intersection of one’s interpretation of work (e.g. of events, dynamics, relationships), emotional responses and level of motivation. According to the authors, inner work life affects one’s attention to tasks, level of engagement and daily attitude in the workplace. Further, the authors argue that the best motivator is progress towards completing meaningful work (and not positive feedback). Managers can support progress by setting clear goals, enabling autonomy, providing resources, setting reasonable timelines, helping with the work (as appropriate) and cultivating a learning environment. On the flip side, managers impede progress by micro-managing, dismissing ideas and assigning meaningless tasks. While the perception of meaningless tasks is individual-specific, common reasons include being overqualified, lack of interest and ambiguity (such as lack of clear purpose).
Inspired by this book, I invite you to join me in:
- At the beginning, middle and/or near-end project phase, setting up a 15-minute meeting with the team to identify catalysts that would aid their progress and barriers that would impede their progress. Take action to support catalysts and remove barriers.
- Individually or collectively, identifying a recent success and reflecting on its context (e.g. Why was it a success? What enabled success?).
- During a one-on-one, asking your direct report to identify a recent work event. Then ask for their interpretation of the event, how it made them feel and how it impacted their motivation.
Done reading? Make sure to share your own book recommendations by leaving a comment below ⬇️
(Image credit: Unsplash)
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