FOREWORD

Want a guaranteed conversation starter? Ask someone if they’ve ever had a bad manager. And then brace yourself, because almost all of us know what it’s like to work for a soul-crushing, morale-killing, please-don’t-make-me-go-to-work kind of manager.

But if we’re fortunate, we’ve also worked with a great manager—one who cared about us, believed in us, and helped us do our best work.

Legendary Harvard Business School professor Clayton Christensen believes management is one of the most meaningful roles in the world. In How Will You Measure Your Life? he writes, “If you want to help other people, be a manager. If done well, management is among the most noble of professions. You are in a position where you have eight or ten hours every day from every person who works for you. You have the opportunity to frame each person’s work so that, at the end of every day, your employees will go home… living a life filled with motivators.”

And the data proves it. According to Gallup, “Managers account for at least 70% of variance in employee engagement scores across business units.”^I

Being a great manager is one of the most influential roles—and one of the hardest. When I led a team for the first time, I struggled to learn on the job. What I wouldn’t have given for a Wikipedia for managers, or even better, a WebMD for my leadership aches and pains. It didn’t exist; so my cofounder and I set out to create one in a drafty San Francisco basement eight years ago.

The resulting company, Jhana, was founded on the idea that everyone deserves a great manager. (While there are impassioned arguments around the terms “leader” and “manager,” the authors and I will use them interchangeably in this book for ease of reading.) Jhana now serves as an online learning resource that provides bite-size training for leaders, and our research confirmed how universally hard it was to transition into leadership, how often new managers weren’t set up for success, and how little direction they received from their bosses. Our team of PhDs, researchers, writers, and technologists dove into the academic research and built a panel of managers to validate or refute their findings in the real world. What emerged was some of the best, most practical solutions for the challenges all managers face: delegating, leading people, setting the right goals, supporting people, hiring, firing, and motivating.

Apparently, I wasn’t the only new manager who could use the help, because Jhana took off. Managers used our practical solutions in tech companies, professional services, financial services, hospitals, manufacturing, schools, universities, and governments. To increase our impact, we joined up with FranklinCovey, one of the most respected leadership-development companies in the world. Beginning with its cofounder, Dr. Stephen R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, FranklinCovey has nearly four decades of experience around these fundamental leadership issues:

• How could we help people make one of the most difficult transitions of their careers, from individual contributor to manager, giving them the confidence to overcome their self-doubt?
• How could we help managers fulfill their potential and continue to learn and develop over time?
• How could we help them manage the often crushing stress that comes with the job?

With FranklinCovey’s principle-based leadership legacy and Jhana’s innovative Silicon Valley approach, we built a leadership solution that combined the best of both worlds: the 6 Critical Practices for Leading a Team, used by hundreds of thousands of managers in countries all over the world.

Although created primarily for managers leading teams of individual contributors, the practices in this book apply to leaders at any level:

If you’re a new manager: You’ll uncover the proven best practices to lead and develop your people into a high-performing team.

If you’re an experienced manager: Focus on the practices that fill the gaps in your management training, and check out the tools for your most critical interactions such as conducting 1-on-1s, setting goals, and leading through change.

If you’re a leader of leaders: You’ll find practical ways to sharpen your managerial skills. This book can also serve as a guide to mentor new managers who report to you.

If you’re a human resource, learning and development, or organizational development professional: Use this book to coach experienced managers and develop new/emerging leaders.

If you’re a C-level executive: Use this book to model the practices so they manifest on the front line. If you’re not using these practices, your managers probably won’t either.

Along with Scott, Todd, and Victoria, I have found leadership to be especially challenging but also very rewarding. But if you’re not there yet, the practices in this book will help you get there. Enjoy this journey that will inspire managers at any level to make an impact with their teams and leave a lasting legacy.

—Rob Cahill

 Cofounder and CEO, Jhana

 Vice President, FranklinCovey

I. Gallup, Inc. (n.d.). Managers Account for 70% of Variance in Employee Engagement. Retrieved from https://news.gallup.com/businessjournal/182792/managers-account-variance-employee-engagement.aspx.