Book | 2019

Becoming a Manager: How New Managers Master the Challenges of Leadership

by Linda A. Hill

Abstract

In your career, or anyone's, there is one transition that stands out as the most crucial—going from individual contributor to competent manager.

New managers have to learn how to lead others rather than do the work themselves, to win trust and respect, to motivate, and to strike the right balance between delegation and control. Many fail to make the transition successfully.

In this book, I trace the experiences of 19 new managers over the course of their first year in the role. I reveal the complexity of the transition, highlighting the expectations of these managers, their subordinates, and their superiors. I hear the new managers describe how they reframed their understanding of their roles and responsibilities, how they learned to build effective cross-functional work relationships, how and when they used individual and organizational resources, and how they learned to cope with the inevitable stresses of leadership.

I show that becoming a manager is a profound psychological adjustment—a true transformation—as well as a continuous process of learning from experience.

Keywords: Management; Leadership; Leadership Development; Management Skills; Learning;

Format: Print Find at HarvardPurchase

Citation:

Hill, Linda A. Becoming a Manager: How New Managers Master the Challenges of Leadership. 2nd ed., Boston: Harvard Business Review Press, 2019.

About the Author

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Linda A. Hill
Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration
Organizational Behavior

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