You're in a leadership transition, and it's harder than anyone told you it would be

When you move from a role you were good at into a leadership role you're new at, your sense of competence collapses. Every rough day feeds the question: am I actually bad at this? The problem is that question lives in your head, running on a loop, mixing up real problems with invented ones.

Use the Stress Externaliser to break the loop. When the spiral starts, write down: "I'm stressed about ___." Getting the worry out of your head and onto paper so you can see it more clearly and focus on solutions. Challenge negative assumptions: are your fears based on facts or speculation?

"I'm stressed about my team not speaking up in today's meeting" is fact. You can work with that: ask two team members individually what would help them contribute, and adjust the format next week.

"I'm stressed about my team thinking I'm not qualified" is speculation. You don't know what they think. Treating speculation as fact is what keeps the spiral going.

Externalize your stress with 1 sentence, written down, and test it against reality. Try it the next time the loop starts. You can thank us later.

See the full framework in The Making of a Manager →

When you get promoted above people who used to be your equals, the relationship breaks. The group chat goes quiet. Lunches get awkward. People share less because you now have authority over them. You can't fix this by pretending nothing changed, and you can't fix it by pulling rank. You need to rebuild the relationship on different terms.

Start with one question, asked in your next 1:1: "Is there anything I could do or stop doing to make it easier to work with me?"

People are likely to claim that everything's fine. Persist until you get an honest response: count to 6 in silence, then say "surely there's something I could do better at." The discomfort of the pause is the point. It signals that you actually want the answer.

When they do give you something, thank them and promise to work on it. Don't defend yourself. When you show that you've heard the criticism and are taking action, people will be more likely to share in future. That's how the new dynamic starts to form.

Try the question this week. You can thank us later.

See the full framework in Radical Candor →

When someone on your team brings you a problem, your instinct is to jump in with an answer or just do it yourself. Stanier calls this your Advice Monster. It shows up in three forms: Tell-It (you feel your value comes from having all the answers), Save-It (you feel others will fail without your help), and Control-It (you feel things will fall apart if you don't manage every detail personally). All three keep you as the bottleneck while your team stays dependent on you.

The fix is to stay curious longer and delay the urge to jump in with premature advice. Use the Bookends Combo to frame your next conversation when someone comes to you with a problem:

Open with: "What's on your mind?"
Close with: "What was most useful here for you?"

Between those two questions, resist the urge to solve. Ask "What's the real challenge here for you?" and when they answer, ask "And what else?" Their first answer is rarely their best answer. The goal is to help them reach the insight themselves, not to hand them yours.

This applies whether someone is asking for your input on a decision or you're about to take back a task because it's faster to do it yourself. In both cases, the Advice Monster is running. In both cases, the antidote is the same: ask one more question before you act.

Try the Bookends in your next 1:1. You can thank us later.

See the full framework in The Advice Trap →

Most new managers avoid difficult feedback because they care about the relationship. Scott calls this Ruinous Empathy: you care deeply, but you won't challenge directly. So you soften the message, delay the conversation, or skip it entirely. The problem compounds. The team watches you tolerate it. And the relationship you were protecting erodes anyway.

Scott's Radical Candor framework has two axes: Care Personally and Challenge Directly. You're already high on care. The gap is challenge.

Use the Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) model to provide constructive feedback objectively. Prepare for your next conversation by writing down the specifics:

"In [situation], when you [behaviour], the impact was [impact]."

For example: "In last Tuesday's standup [situation], when you said the feature was on track but it missed the deadline by two days [behavior], the team had to scramble to cover the gap [impact]."

This avoids vague phrases (e.g. "lately", "in general"), character judgments, or subjective feelings that often trigger defensiveness.

Just 1 sentence with 3 rules. Try in your next conversation. You can thank us later.

See the full framework in Radical Candor →

When you're in a leadership transition, the hardest part is often that you can't tell what's working and what isn't. Unlike the work you used to do, where output was visible, management produces results through other people over time. Your feelings are unreliable: good days feel like flukes, bad days feel like verdicts.

Zhuo sets aside time weekly to reflect on short-term progress and insights. Schedule 15 minutes on Friday and ask yourself 3 questions:

1. What went well this week as a manager?
2. What didn't?
3. What is 1 thing I will do differently next week?

Schedule it in your calendar every Friday evening. Use the 3 questions to process your week, so you feel ready for next Monday instead of dreading it on Sunday. This practice works at any level of leadership.

Try it this Friday. You can thank us later.

See the full framework in The Making of a Manager →