Alright, this is gonna be a long one. And not just a one-time thing. I'll keep updating it as I write more about leadership. I’ll try to link everything I’ve written before. This one’s the one, just like in the Matrix. All the things I wish I had when I first stepped into managing.

There are so many damn questions when you start managing. What should I be doing? Am I doing it right? Why does this feel weird? Why is everything suddenly so political? Where did all my focus time go? I want this post to be something you can come back to. A kind of manager survival guide. Not polished advice. Not corporate fluff. Just the kind of dumb shit I wish someone told me earlier.

Early in my career, I didn’t do as much research on leadership as I should have. I didn't think about good manager traits. I read technical stuff, sure but not enough on actually managing people. I see now how many people want to be prepared. They want to know what they’re walking into. They want to not fuck it up. So this post is for them. And for you. And honestly, for me too. You know it’s because even now, after doing this for a while, I still forget the basics sometimes. I still get lost in the mess. And sometimes, it’s good to come back and remember what actually matters.

So buckle up. This won’t be short. But it might just be the one you come back to when everything starts feeling a little too messy again. Don’t want to show off but have been working on this for a month. I found more and more stuff while writing and added more. Well, I’ll probably add more later. Anyway, let’s get started.

New manager survival guideNew manager survival guide

1. Management Is a Career Shift

Yeah yeah, you’ve heard this one before. You walked the path to leadership. Now, you hear “It’s not a promotion, it’s a new job.” But there’s a reason it gets repeated so often. It’s true. And still, most people don’t get it until they’re neck deep in 1:1s, performance issues, and some weird Slack thread that just feels off but you’re now responsible for fixing it. The second you step into management, the metrics for success change. 

Now you win by making other people win. You represent the business. That’s the job.

Which sucks, honestly, if you don’t realize it early. Because if you were a high-performing IC, you probably loved being in the weeds. Solving problems directly. Cranking stuff out. Refactoring code. Designing for failure. Feeling the dopamine of “I built this” or "I fixed it."

That feeling doesn’t show up the same way in management. You’re now in the invisible work zone – setting context, reducing friction, unblocking people, translating leadership nonsense, noticing tensions before they explode. And half the time, no one even sees it.

So yeah. You changed jobs. You might still be in the same company, maybe even the same team, but your role is unrecognizably different. Treat it like a new career. Because it is.

2. Learn the Job You Just Took

Alright, I already told you. You got a new job. So here’s a question: what did you do to get good at your old one? You probably spent years reading, coding, debugging, writing docs, obsessing over the little things. You didn’t wake up one day knowing how to optimize queries, run production migrations or write clean abstractions. You learned it. You put in the reps. And now you’re telling me you’re a manager, but you’re not studying management? Come on.

Managers keep saying “management is a different job,” but most people don’t act like it. They just hope they’ll figure it out as they go. But the problems you face now? They’re not going to solve it themselves. You can’t put a pull request to fix your messy team dynamic or engineering health issues. There’s no stack overflow answer for “how do I reward someone for going above and beyond when I don’t even have a budget?”

That’s not something anyone teaches you ahead of time. You learn by being in the fire or, if you’re smart, by reading what people who have been in the fire wrote down. Would you trust a surgeon who skipped med school? No? Then why the hell would anyone trust a manager who hasn’t studied the craft?

Read books. Take a course. Find a mentor. Shameless plug, happy to mentor you. 

This job doesn’t come with an instruction manual. But that doesn’t mean you get to wing it.

Management isn’t about good intentions or instincts. It’s about deliberate learning and reflection. You don’t need a degree but you do need to take it seriously.

3. Don’t Change Anything

You’ll feel the urge to change meetings, processes, workflows, tooling, all of it. Don’t. At least not right away. I know you have good intentions. You want to do things right. Nevertheless, you don’t fully understand why things are the way they are. That weird meeting cadence, that messy doc, the approvals that seem like overkill. Sad but almost always true, they probably exist for a reason. Or at the very least, they solve a problem you haven’t bumped into yet. When I changed jobs, it always took me a while to realize that yeah, their process is clunky and not how I’d do it but it works. And it gets the team where they need to be.

Changing stuff too early signals ego, not leadership. You’re not there to play hero. You’re there to understand, listen, and learn. You’ll earn the right to tweak things but that comes later, when people trust you and you actually know how things run.

Be patient. Observe. Ask questions. Then, maybe, improve something.

4. You’re Not Their Friend

Alright, you’ve heard this one before, but let me say it louder for the people in the back: you’re not their friend. And no, you can’t be. Not really. I get it. You want to be liked. You want to be approachable. You don’t want to be that cold, robotic boss no one talks to. Cool. But here’s the thing. Friendship isn’t the same as trust. You can be friendly, but you can’t be friends. Not unless you’re ready to screw it up for both of you.

Why? Because at some point, the job is going to demand something of you. A tough conversation. A performance review. A reorg. A layoff. A restructure. And suddenly, you’re not just their buddy. You’re the one holding the axe. If you blur the line too much, it’s going to cut deeper. For them and for you. You’ll hesitate. You’ll overthink. You’ll let things slide because you don’t want to hurt them. And guess what? That hesitation? That’s what kills teams. That’s what kills culture.

You need commanding respect, not just casual rapport. Let’s not pretend they don’t know the power dynamic. Your reports are paid to be polite to you. Don’t confuse being treated nicely with being trusted. Your reports are financially incentivized to be liked by you, just like a server at a restaurant who wants to get a tip.

Be kind. Be human. Be real. But don’t be their friend. They need a leader, not a lunch buddy. I often go to lunch with my reports though.

5. Your 1-on-1s Are Sacred

If your 1-on-1s are just status updates, that’s only babysitting. Your 1-on-1s are your most powerful tool, not just for managing tasks, but for managing people. And if you’re not using that time to listen deeply, you’re throwing away the one space where you can actually build trust before shit hits the fan.

Here’s the reality: your people won’t always tell you when they’re drowning, demoralized, or planning to leave. You have to ask. And not with weak-ass check-ins like “how’s everything?” Ask like this:

  • What’s the biggest waste of time in your week?
  • What’s blocking you that you haven’t told me about?
  • What do you wish I knew about this project or the team?
  • What’s one thing I could be doing better as your manager?

Then shut up and listen. Like really listen. Don’t jump in to fix. Don’t make it about you. Just absorb it. Take notes. Follow up. Because what you say after that meeting is where the trust either grows or dies. And here’s the kicker. If they ask for something and you can’t deliver? Say that. Be real. “I can’t fix that right now, but I heard you. I’ll think about workarounds.” It lands way better than the silence. Silence reads as dismissal.

6. Feedback Is a Muscle

Let me put it this way: if you only give feedback during performance review season, that’s like brushing your teeth once a quarter and wondering why your mouth smells. Feedback is a muscle. If you don’t train it, it stays weak. If you only use it once in a blue moon, it’ll feel awkward, clumsy, and fake. You gotta make it part of how you operate daily, weekly, constantly. No buildup. No ceremony. Be fast(same day), specific(related to an observation), and direct(avoid fluff). For instance,  “You handled that incident really well – your mitigation helped avoid a bigger outage.” 

When it comes to giving constructive feedback, I use something called COIN. It stands for:

  • Context – Where/when did this happen?
  • Observation – What did you actually see or hear?
  • Impact – What was the effect of that behavior?
  • Next Step – What do we want to happen going forward?

So instead of “That meeting didn’t go well,” try: “Hey, during the design review yesterday (context), I noticed you interrupted James multiple times while he was speaking (observation). It came across as dismissive and the conversation derailed (impact). Going forward, can we try to let people finish before jumping in? (next step)”

Do this enough, and you’ll stop fumbling through the hard conversations. It’ll come out smoother. More human. And if the words still get stuck in your throat? Fine. Send a message.

7. Address Underperformance Quickly

You’re not better than anyone else. You don’t have some secret sauce. If someone is underperforming and you don’t address it, that’s on you. And here’s the brutal truth: waiting makes it worse. Every seasoned manager I’ve read or talked said the same damn thing. They always wish they acted sooner​.

One manager I used to mentor once said they put off a PIP for a year. A whole year. It drained their team, killed morale, and stressed them out beyond reason​. This isn’t about being ruthless. It’s about being responsible. If you keep dodging the hard conversation, your high performers are picking up the slack. They notice. Here’s the framework that works for me:

  • Diagnose first: Did I set them up for success? Did I give them the right tools? Did I actually coach or just hope they’d figure it out?​
  • Be clear: Here’s what’s expected. Here’s what’s not happening. Here’s what needs to change.
  • Be consistent: Don’t let things slide because you’re tired or busy. That’s where your team learns they can’t trust your standards.
  • Own the outcome: If it doesn’t work out, let it be clear, fair, and fast.

This is one of those muscles you build by using. You won’t like it. But if you don’t flex it, everything else starts to rot.

8. Don’t Micromanage

You’ll be tempted, especially if you were a strong IC. You know how to do the thing. You can probably do it faster. Cleaner. With less back and forth.

Don’t.

Let them struggle a little. Optimize for skill growth, not short-term wins. Your job isn’t to be the best developer in the room anymore. Your job is to build people who don’t need you breathing down their neck. Ask questions instead of giving answers. Push thinking instead of prescribing solutions. 

9. You Need Work-Life Balance

This isn’t a task game anymore. It’s an energy game. If you’re burned out, your team feels it even when you think you’re hiding it well. They read your energy before they read your words. 

Leadership requires clarity. Clarity needs headspace. Headspace needs room. Give yourself that room.

10. Be Stupidly Clear

Clarity solves 90% of your problems. You think you said it clearly? Say it again. And then one more time. Don’t assume anything. Spell out expectations. Repeat them often. Set the goal, explain why it matters, and make sure it landed. If your team’s confused, that’s on you​.

Nothing’s worse than a boss who expects you to read their mind. You need to remove ambiguity. and reduce anxiety. You’re giving people a chance to do great work without guessing what the hell you want.

Say it clear. Say it again. Then write it down.

11. Shield the Team from Chaos

You are not a mailman. You’re a filter, not a funnel. Leadership will toss chaos your way. Fire drills, last-minute pivots, vague OKRs wrapped in buzzwords. Don’t just pass that shit along. Your job is to absorb the noise, make sense of it, and hand your team only what they need to do their best work.

Don’t overload them with raw strategy docs or dump Slack threads into Jira and call it alignment. Give them the why behind the work. Translate it. Frame it. Make it matter.

And if there’s a re-org or pointless top-down decision? Don’t fake excitement. Acknowledge it’s disruptive. Then show them the path through it. Be calm. Be human. Be honest. Your team doesn’t need another source of stress. They need a buffer. That’s you.

12. You’re in the Middle

You’re not just managing down. You’re managing up and across too. Learn what your boss cares about. Not in a suck-up way but so you can help them win. That means understanding their KPIs, anticipating what they’ll ask, and making them look good before they even know they need it. It's not politics, it's navigation​.

And don’t sleep on your peers. You need them. Build alliances before you need favors. Align on priorities. Understand what keeps them up at night. Why? Because your team’s success depends on those cross-team relationships way more than you think.

13. Redefine Success

Let’s kill the myth now. Your success isn’t about you anymore. You used to write code. Now your job is helping others write it better. You don’t ship features anymore, you grow the people who do. That’s the shift. 

You won’t be a high performer anymore. Your job now is to sell vision, keep everyone marching, and remove blockers. And measure success through your team. Their wins are your wins. You’re not running a charity, but you’re also not a solo contributor anymore.

It’s hard. You’ll feel useless at first. You’ll want to jump back in. Don’t. Let them do it even if it’s slower. Your job is to create a system where they thrive. That’s what gets remembered. That’s what scales.

14. Don’t Fix Everything

You’ll be tempted to jump in. To clean it up. To fix it fast. Don’t. Every time you do, you’re training them to depend on you. That’s how you accidentally build a team of smart people who stop thinking and start waiting. It’s called learned helplessness and yeah, you probably caused it without realizing​.

Let failure happen. Pick low-stakes tasks. Give them space to fail a little. Then do the real work. Walk them through what happened, what they tried, and what to do next. Reflect, don’t rescue.

Fixing everything yourself teaches the wrong lesson. You reset the bar every time you jump in. Coach the thinking. Ask questions like:

  • What should we do?
  • What options did you consider?
  • Why did you try that approach?
  • What would you do differently next time?

15. Management is Lonely

No one tells you this, but it hits fast. One day, you’re part of the crew. The next day, you’re the boss. And suddenly, everyone’s polite. Nobody tries to roast you. You will feel lonely and unfortunately it’s what it’s. Find mentors and peers to share that loneliness. 

16. “Fair” Doesn’t Mean “Same”

If you treat everyone the same, you’re doing it wrong. Some folks need more check-ins. Some want space. Some thrive with clarity, others with freedom. Your job is to know the difference and adjust. That’s not favoritism. It’s management. 

Think about it like coaching: one athlete might need drills, another just needs the game plan. The point is to get both ready to win. The trap is thinking fairness = sameness. But equity means giving people what they need to succeed, not what feels symmetrical. 

17. Your Culture Is What You Tolerate

You can write all the mission statements and team tenets you want. Doesn’t matter. People don’t follow documents. They follow patterns. Your culture isn’t what you say. It’s what you allow. Here are a few examples:

  • Let that toxic high performer keep crushing metrics while talking down to others? That’s the culture now.
  • Let someone ignore your direction repeatedly with no consequences? That’s the culture now.
  • Stay silent when someone steamrolls in meetings? Congrats. That’s your culture now too.

Company has its values but you are responsible for the culture of your team. Culture is the product of the behavior you model and the behavior you tolerate. It doesn’t mean you go full dictator. It means you set the tone. You hold the line when it matters. And yeah, sometimes you’ll have to have uncomfortable conversations, even with people who’ve been around longer than you. Especially them.

Culture gets shaped in those moments when it’s easier to look away. Don’t.

18. Document Everything

Look, memory is trash. Yours, theirs, mine. Don’t rely on it. Document your 1-on-1s. Write down the decisions you made, the feedback you gave, the asks they brought up even if it felt minor. Why? Because three weeks from now when someone says, “We never talked about that,” you’ll wish you did. It’s not just about covering your ass. It’s about noticing patterns, holding accountability, and actually helping people grow.

Make this a system, not a memory test. Use whatever tool works. Doesn’t matter. What matters is having receipts and insight. 

19. Build Trust First

You want high performance? Start with trust. Because without it, nothing works. You can’t shortcut this. People won’t give you honesty, effort, or loyalty if they don’t trust you. Without trust, people won’t take risks. They won’t go the extra mile when it matters.

Don’t confuse being liked with being trusted. This isn’t about being the “cool boss.” It’s about being the reliable one. The one they know will have their back, be honest with them, and stay calm when shit hits the fan.

Trust is the soil. Everything else grows from there.

20. Don't Be the Bottleneck

Don’t assign tasks, assign ownership and scope, make people accountable for the outcome. If you’re the only one making decisions, reviewing everything, or routing all the work, congrats: you’ve just become the bottleneck. You might feel helpful, but what you’re really doing is slowing everyone down and killing their growth.

Build your technical vision. In that vision, give people areas/domains/scope. Make them DRIs (Directly Responsible Individuals). Let them own the outcome, not just the task list. If it fails, they learn. If it succeeds, they feel proud. You’re there to establish the process. 

Try to optimize for skill growth over the long term. Delegate, delegate, delegate. You’re not in the critical path anymore. You’re here to coordinate, not to do. This shift is hard, especially if you used to be the person doing the work. But your job now is to create thinkers, not task rabbits.

21. Protect Your High Performers

It’s easy to spend all your time fixing problems. Coaching the struggling folks. Managing the drama. But don’t forget who’s carrying the team. Your high performers – the ones who consistently show up, deliver, help others, make things easier –  they need your time too. They need your feedback. Your support. Your advocacy.

If you ignore them because they are fine, you’re teaching them that extra effort doesn’t matter. That nobody notices. And then? They’ll leave. Quietly. Without drama. They’ll just be gone one day. One of the mistakes people make is to reward underperformance with your attention. Instead, protect and grow the people who are actually pulling the weight.

Recognize their work. Give them bigger challenges. Shield them from stupid busywork when you can. Fight for their promotions. Get them the resources they need. Because high performers don’t burn out from work. They burn out from feeling invisible.

Don’t let that happen on your watch.