After Reading The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo 10 Lessons I Learned About Becoming a Capable, Trusted, and Human-Centered Leader [A Personal Reflection‪]‬

After Reading The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo 10 Lessons I Learned About Becoming a Capable, Trusted, and Human-Centered Leader [A Personal Reflection]

I'll be honest with you, when I first picked up Julie Zhuo's book about management, I wasn't sure what to expect. Leadership books can sometimes feel like they're written by people who've forgotten what it's like to be confused, overwhelmed, or just trying to figure things out on a Tuesday afternoon when everything's going wrong. But Zhuo's approach felt different from page one. She writes like someone who remembers her first day as a manager, remembers the mistakes, remembers the fear of not knowing if she was doing it right.
What struck me most about this book was how it balanced practical advice with genuine emotional honesty. Management isn't just about tactics and frameworks, it's about people. It's about the messy, complicated, beautiful work of helping others become better versions of themselves while also growing yourself. And that's not something you can reduce to a five-step formula, no matter how much we might want one.
As I read through Zhuo's experiences at Facebook, where she became a manager at twenty-five with no formal training, I found myself nodding along to so many moments. The anxiety of giving feedback. The confusion about what meetings are actually supposed to accomplish. The realization that your job has fundamentally changed when you become responsible for other people's growth and success. These weren't abstract concepts in her telling, they were real challenges she'd faced and learned from.



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