Becoming a Professional Manager - First Experience

Becoming the BOSS. By:
Hill, Linda A., Harvard Business Review,
Jan 2007, Vol. 85, Issue 1

Since my original research, which I described in the first edition of Becoming a Manager, published in 1992, I've continued to study the personal transformation involved when someone becomes a boss.

In their prior jobs, success depended primarily on their personal expertise and actions. As managers, they are responsible for setting and implementing an agenda for a whole group, something for which their careers as individual performers haven't prepared them.

A New Manager's Misconceptions

Managers wield significant authority.
Authority flows from the manager's position.
Managers must control their direct reports.
Managers must focus on forging good individual relationships.
Managers must ensure that things run smoothly.

Author

Linda A. Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School in Boston and the author of Becoming a Manager: How New Managers Master the Challenges of Leadership (Harvard Business School Press, second edition, 2003).