Books to Give a New Manager

The best books to give a new manager are The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo, Radical Candor by Kim Scott, The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier, You Are Capable of More by Chris Sund, Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet, and Multipliers by Liz Wiseman.

Give one, not a stack

Every new manager I have ever watched get promoted has been handed a pile of books by somebody well-meaning, and almost none of those piles got read. Partly because the first three months of managing people is the busiest anyone has been in years, and partly because a stack sends a message nobody wants on day one, which is that you think they have an enormous amount to learn.

They do. Saying so with a gift is not the way. One book, chosen for what they are actually about to walk into, gets read and remembered.

The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo

The default pick, and the one I would hand over most often. Zhuo became a manager at Facebook at twenty-five with no idea what she was doing, and she writes about that honestly, including the meetings she handled badly and the feedback she avoided giving for months.

It is practical without being condescending, which is a harder balance than it sounds in this category. If you only give one book and you do not know the person’s specific situation, give this one.

Radical Candor by Kim Scott

For the mistake new managers actually make. Almost nobody’s first failure is being too harsh, and almost everybody’s first failure is caring personally without challenging directly, which Scott calls ruinous empathy and which is what decent people do when they do not want to upset anyone.

Her framework is the clearest thing written on the line between honest and cruel. Give it to someone who is agreeable by nature and about to manage friends.

The Coaching Habit by Michael Bungay Stanier

Seven questions, very short chapters, readable in an evening, which makes it the most realistic gift for someone drowning in a first month. The best of the seven is what he calls the AWE question, simply asking and what else after someone has finished answering, because people give you the safe answer first and the real one third.

Immediately usable in their next one-on-one, which is what a new manager needs more than a philosophy.

Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet

Marquet took over the worst-performing submarine in the fleet and, rather than giving better orders, stopped giving them, pushing authority down to the people who actually had the information. Within a few years the ship was among the best in the Navy.

It is a real account rather than a framework, which makes it persuasive in a way most leadership books are not. Right for someone inheriting a team that has been micromanaged.

Multipliers by Liz Wiseman

Wiseman’s research is on why some leaders make everyone around them smarter and others quietly make everyone smaller, and her most useful idea is the accidental diminisher, the well-meaning manager who jumps in to help and takes the thinking away from someone who needed to do it themselves.

That is exactly the trap a newly promoted high performer falls into. They were good at the work, so they keep doing the work, and their team stops growing.

What Got You Here Won’t Get You There by Marshall Goldsmith

Goldsmith coached senior executives for a career and wrote about the specific habits that make someone successful early and then quietly cap them, from needing to win every exchange to adding your improvement to everyone else’s idea.

Best read before the title rather than after, while the stakes are still low enough to unlearn things cheaply.

Match the book to the situation

If you have to pick blind, pick The Making of a Manager. It is the most likely to get finished and the least likely to feel like a comment on their competence.

Common questions