Effective managers thrive on people interaction, enable teams to find solutions, and judge success by the team's performance rather than personal output.
Great managers love spending their day talking with people. If a full day of 1:1s feels awful, the role will quickly become a grind, leading to burnout and disengaged teams. The piece stresses that genuine enjoyment of people work is the foundation for sustainable leadership.
A manager doesn't need to have every answer; the goal is to motivate the team to surface solutions. By asking the right questions and avoiding the need to be the smartest person in the room, leaders become coaches who amplify the collective output.
The true metric of a manager is the strength of their team. High-performing teams deliver outcomes regardless of the manager's personal output, and hiring diverse talent that complements the manager's weaknesses accelerates growth. The article warns against hiring only like-minded people and stresses the long-term value of building a team that learns from each other.
Experience is the ultimate teacher. After three or more years of navigating hiring, performance issues, and morale swings, senior managers develop the perspective that steadies them through storms. The narrative shows why the path to a confident manager is built on repeated, varied challenges rather than quick fixes.
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