For all those stepping up to lead teams or those looking for a refresh see below for free resources which will set you on the right path. The resources are pivotal to enable you to find out not only the type of manager you are but to be the most effective manager you can be.

  • Google’s New Manager Training
    • These course materials were originally designed for Google managers to help them transition from individual contributor roles to manager roles. In addition to building skills, the curriculum incorporates introspection, perspective shifting, and awareness building. This product has been influenced by years of iteration, internal and external research, and feedback from new managers. This version has been modified to make it as useful as possible for an external audience. Adapt it to fit your organisation’s culture and needs.
  • Marshall Goldsmith’s What got you here won’t get you there – Derek Siver’s summary
    • Aimed at already-successful people. The personality traits that brought you to success (personal discipline, saying yes to everything, over-confidence) are the same traits that hold you back from going further! (Where you need to listen to lead, and don’t let over-confidence make you over-commit.) Stinging counter-intuitive insights that hit very close to home for me. Great specific suggestions for how to improve.
  • Scott Adam’s Blog – Management/Success/Leadership: Mostly Bullshit 
    • The fields of management/success/leadership are a lot like the finance industry in the sense that much of it is based on confusing correlation and chance with causation. We humans like to feel as if we understand and control our environments. We don’t like to think of ourselves as helpless leaves blowing in the wind of chance. So we clutch at any ridiculous explanation of how things work.
  •  Derek Siver’s – Don’t add your 2 cents 
    • The boss’s opinion is no better than anyone else’s. But once you become the boss, unfortunately, your opinion is dangerous because it’s not just one person’s opinion anymore — it’s a command! So adding your two cents can really hurt morale.
  •  Y Combinator – Advice for New Managers (Start-ups)
    • People leave managers, not companies, yet while most founders are obsessive about trying to build a product that people love, many first-time founders raise a bunch of money and start building a team without any management experience at all.
  • Farnam St Blog – Leaders and Followers 
    • Goldsmith argues that whether you are trying to lead other people or lead yourself, the obstacles are very much the same. You still have to deal with all the variables in the environment: temptations pushing you away from your objective, motivation issues, and self-discipline issues. One result is that we tend to be superior planners but inferior doers. We talk a good game.
  • Safety Differently – The Importance of Psychological Safety  – Tim Austin
    • The belief about how leaders respond when team members put themselves on the line is the very essence of psychological safety. Creating a supportive environment where team members have the freedom to raise concerns without fear of appearing ignorant, incompetent, intrusive or negative will enhance the flow of organisational information and learning. With communication between and within teams a critical issue for all organisations, improving the conditions that foster psychological safety will enable teams to learn, adapt and perform effectively.