Practical Ways to Manage Yourself
Practical Ways to Manage Yourself
Modern Management Made Easy, Book 1
About the Book
How can you be the best manager you can be?
If you've never seen excellent management, you might not know what "best" looks like—and that's a problem. You are not alone.
Modern management requires we first manage ourselves—and that might be the most challenging part of management. Based on research, backed up by personal stories, you'll see examples of unwise and excellent management. You can then choose from several options to improve your management results.
Through questions, stories, and proven options, learn how you can:
- Use the seven principles of modern management to create an environment where everyone can thrive.
- Recognize and avoid micromanagement.
- Support the people doing the work to solve more of their problems.
- Make time to think so you can be your best self.
- Trust the people you lead and serve.
- And, much more.
With its question and myth, each chapter offers you options to rethink how you manage yourself.
You'll see earn how common—but ill-advised—management practices prevent you from enabling the people you lead and serve.
Become a modern manager. Learn to manage yourself so you and the people you lead and serve can deliver the results everyone needs.
About the Author
Bundles that include this book
Table of Contents
- Praise Quotes
- Acknowledgments
- Introduction
-
1. Management Starts with Managing Yourself
- 1.1 Discover Your Management Balance with Congruence
- 1.2 Manage With Value-Based Integrity
- 1.3 Self-Esteem Builds Empathy and Respect for Yourself
- 1.4 Managers Serve and Lead Others
- 1.5 Managers Manage the System
- 1.6 Consider These Principles for Managing Yourself
- 1.7 Build Your Management Excellence
-
2. How Valuable Are Managers?
- 2.1 Myth: I Am More Valuable than Other People
- 2.2 Middle Managers Have a Difficult Balancing Act
- 2.3 Great Management Is Servant Leadership
- 2.4 Assess the Cost of Your Decisions or the Cost of Change
- 2.5 Consider the Value You Offer
-
3. Are You the One to Solve This Problem?
- 3.1 Myth: I Must Solve the Team’s Problem for Them
- 3.2 Managers Want to Be Helpful
- 3.3 Encourage the People Who See the Problems to Solve Them
- 3.4 Managers Can Help Unstick Problem-Solving
- 3.5 Let the Team Solve Its Own Problems
- 3.6 Options to Avoid Inflicting Help
-
4. Does Your Team Need You So They Can Work?
- 4.1 Myth: I Am Too Valuable to Take a Vacation
- 4.2 “Please Stay in Touch While You Are Gone”
- 4.3 Do You Feel Indispensable?
- 4.4 Prepare to Delegate
- 4.5 Consider What You Can Delegate
- 4.6 Support Your Team’s Decisions
- 4.7 Avoid Anyone Second Guessing Your Team’s Decisions
- 4.8 Identify Your Delegation Boundaries
- 4.9 Options to Start Delegation
- 4.10 Take a Vacation
-
5. Can You Be Effective as a Player-Coach?
- 5.1 Myth: I Can Still Do Significant Technical Work
- 5.2 Do You Still Understand the Details?
- 5.3 Know What You Can Do
- 5.4 Consider the Role of a Technical Manager
- 5.5 Create an Environment Where People Can Solve Problems
- 5.6 Can You Contribute Technically?
- 5.7 Where Does Management Time Go?
- 5.8 But, My Manager Expects Me to Do Both
- 5.9 Frustrated by Management Work?
- 5.10 What If You Love Technical Work?
- 5.11 Options to Move from Player-Coach to Manager
-
6. Can You Trust Your Estimation Gut?
- 6.1 Myth: I Know How Long the Work Should Take
- 6.2 How Long Will the Work Take?
- 6.3 Do You Still Know What to Do?
- 6.4 What Does the Manager Want?
- 6.5 Options for When You Don’t Like the Estimate
-
7. When Do You Ask, “Are You Done Yet?”
- 7.1 Myth: It’s Fine if I Micromanage
- 7.2 Learn How to Delegate
- 7.3 Clarify Which Information You Need When
- 7.4 Offer Feedback to Managers
- 7.5 Recognize Your Micromanagement
- 7.6 Options to Stop Micromanagement
-
8. Does the Team Need Motivation?
- 8.1 Myth: The Team Needs a Cheerleader!
- 8.2 Intrinsic Motivation Is What Counts
- 8.3 Use Purpose to Solve Problems
- 8.4 Transparency Helps Everyone
- 8.5 Cheerleading Denies Everyone Courage
- 8.6 Options to Encourage and Create Real Motivation
-
9. Are You Allowed to Make Mistakes?
- 9.1 My Very Bad-Manager Day
- 9.2 Myth: I Must Never Admit My Mistakes
- 9.3 Managers Make Mistakes
- 9.4 A Manager’s Mistakes Cascade
- 9.5 Managers Can Rebuild Trust
- 9.6 Wrong Decisions Happen
- 9.7 Ask for Help
- 9.8 Options to Make Safe Mistakes
-
10. When Do You Take Time to Think?
- 10.1 Myth: I Can Concentrate on the Run
- 10.2 When Do You Make Time to Concentrate?
- 10.3 When Do You Decide?
- 10.4 How Do You Concentrate?
- 10.5 Create a Structured Meeting
- 10.6 Sitting Might Not Be the Answer
- 10.7 Options to Make Time to Think
-
11. Are Problems Bad?
- 11.1 Myth: I Must Always Have a Solution to the Problem
- 11.2 Manager Rules Prevent Easy Problem-Solving
- 11.3 Transform Your Manager Rules to Guides
- 11.4 Rules About Problems Won’t Make the Problems Vanish
- 11.5 Acknowledge Your Feelings
- 11.6 Problems Might Be Possibilities
- 11.7 Options to Consider Problems as Possibilities
-
12. How Much Do You Trust the People You Serve?
- 12.1 Myth: You’re Empowered Because I Said So
- 12.2 What Does Empowerment Mean?
- 12.3 Clarify Boundaries
- 12.4 Telling Isn’t the Same as Being
- 12.5 Options to Extend Trust
-
13. What Does “Indispensable” Mean?
- 13.1 Myth: You Believe in Indispensable Employees
- 13.2 Indispensable Employees Create Bottlenecks
- 13.3 What Do You Do with Indispensable Employees?
- 13.4 Consider the Growth Mindset
- 13.5 Avoid the Scarcity Thinking Trap
- 13.6 Origins Of This Thinking
- 13.7 Options to Stop Relying on Indispensable or 10X Employees
-
14. How Can I Do All of This Alone?
- 14.1 Myth: Good Managers Don’t Need One-on-Ones
- 14.2 Create Opportunities to See More of the System
- 14.3 Address Your Management Challenges
- 14.4 Build Trust Both Ways
- 14.5 Options to Create Regular One-on-Ones with Your Manager
-
15. Where Will You Start Managing Yourself?
- 15.1 Measure Your Cycle Time
- 15.2 Assess Your Behavior Now
- 15.3 Change Behaviors Before Beliefs
- 15.4 Why Do People Not Know About These Ideas?
- 15.5 You Don’t Have to Be Perfect
- Annotated Bibliography
- More from Johanna
- Notes
About the Publisher
This book is published on Leanpub by Practical Ink
Johanna Rothman's books on leanpub. Practical, frank, and often humorous tips you can put to work right now.
The Leanpub 60-day 100% Happiness Guarantee
Within 60 days of purchase you can get a 100% refund on any Leanpub purchase, in two clicks.
See full terms
Do Well. Do Good.
Authors have earned$11,968,682writing, publishing and selling on Leanpub, earning 80% royalties while saving up to 25 million pounds of CO2 and up to 46,000 trees.
Learn more about writing on Leanpub
Free Updates. DRM Free.
If you buy a Leanpub book, you get free updates for as long as the author updates the book! Many authors use Leanpub to publish their books in-progress, while they are writing them. All readers get free updates, regardless of when they bought the book or how much they paid (including free).
Most Leanpub books are available in PDF (for computers) and EPUB (for phones, tablets and Kindle). The formats that a book includes are shown at the top right corner of this page.
Finally, Leanpub books don't have any DRM copy-protection nonsense, so you can easily read them on any supported device.
Learn more about Leanpub's ebook formats and where to read them
Top Books
- #1
OpenIntro Statistics
David Diez, Christopher Barr, Mine Cetinkaya-Rundel, and OpenIntroA complete foundation for Statistics, also serving as a foundation for Data Science.
Leanpub revenue supports OpenIntro (US-based nonprofit) so we can provide free desk copies to teachers interested in using OpenIntro Statistics in the classroom and expand the project to support free textbooks in other subjects.
More resources: openintro.org.
- #2
Linear Algebra
Elira Curri and Tanush ShaskaAnswers to selected problems included.
- #3
Ansible for DevOps
Jeff GeerlingAnsible is a simple, but powerful, server and configuration management tool. Learn to use Ansible effectively, whether you manage one server—or thousands.
- #4
A Guide To The Future Of Hospitals
Dr. Bertalan MeskoFor centuries, scientists have been trying to envision the future of hospitals. Following the recent shift towards digital health technologies, in part precipitated by COVID-19, it is natural for one to wonder how these developments will impact hospitals. What can we expect from them in the future? Will there be hospitals at all in a decade’s time?
- #5
C++20 - The Complete Guide
Nicolai M. JosuttisAll new language and library features of C++20 (for those who know previous C++ versions).
The book presents all new language and library features of C++20. Learn how this impacts day-to-day programming, to benefit in practice, to combine new features, and to avoid all new traps.
Buy early, pay less, free updates.
Other books:
- #6
Modern IT Automation with PowerShell
The DevOps Collective, Inc. and Michael ZanattaA PowerShell Textbook written by the community for the community!
- #7
The Rails 7 Way
Obie Fernandez, Lucas Dohmen, and Tom Henrik AadlandThe Rails™ 7 Way is the comprehensive, authoritative reference guide for professionals delivering production-quality code using modern Ruby on Rails. It illuminates the entire Rails 7 API, its most powerful idioms, design approaches, and libraries. Building on the previous editions, this edition has been heavily refactored and updated.
- #8
Mastering STM32 - Second Edition
Carmine NovielloWith more than 1200 microcontrollers, STM32 is probably the most complete ARM Cortex-M platform on the market. This book aims to be the most complete guide around introducing the reader to this exciting MCU portfolio from ST Microelectronics and its official CubeHAL and STM32CubeIDE development environment.
- #9
node-opcua by example
Etienne RossignonGet the best out of node-opcua through a set of documented examples by the author himself that will allow you to create stunning OPCUA Servers or Clients.
- #10
EZ Tools Manuals
Eric Zimmerman and Andrew RathbunEric Zimmerman's Tools are free, open-source, widely taught around the world. This is the official manual for all of his command line and GUI tools.
Top Bundles
- #1
Software Architecture
2 Books
"Software Architecture for Developers" is a practical and pragmatic guide to modern, lightweight software architecture, specifically aimed at developers. You'll learn:The essence of software architecture.Why the software architecture role should include coding, coaching and collaboration.The things that you really need to think about before... - #2
CCIE Service Provider Ultimate Study Bundle
2 Books
Piotr Jablonski, Lukasz Bromirski, and Nick Russo have joined forces to deliver the only CCIE Service Provider training resource you'll ever need. This bundle contains a detailed and challenging collection of workbook labs, plus an extensively detailed technical reference guide. All of us have earned the CCIE Service Provider certification... - #3
Pattern-Oriented Memory Forensics and Malware Detection
2 Books
This training bundle for security engineers and researchers, malware and memory forensics analysts includes two accelerated training courses for Windows memory dump analysis using WinDbg. It is also useful for technical support and escalation engineers who analyze memory dumps from complex software environments and need to check for possible... - #5
All the Books of The Medical Futurist
6 Books
We put together the most popular books from The Medical Futurist to provide a clear picture about the major trends shaping the future of medicine and healthcare. Digital health technologies, artificial intelligence, the future of 20 medical specialties, big pharma, data privacy, digital health investments and how technology giants such as Amazon... - #7
Statistics - All Lee Baker's Books
10 Books
This bundle includes all of the statistics books that Lee Baker has published at LeanPub 13 Statistics Books*1 PlaceNo Hassle! All in both epub and mobi formats - perfect for all devices and screen sizes. --------------------------------------------------------- *The book listed as Getting Started With Statistics is a bundle of 4 books...
