THE ROAD TO BECOMING BOSS

A guide to business basics for the new manager.

At the beginning of his book, Hiner imagines his intended reader, someone who’s just entered into a leadership role at work and is initially filled with the excitement of making a real contribution. “But then,” he writes, “reality strikes like a thunderbolt—managing the team becomes an overwhelming labyrinth of challenges you never saw coming.” Hiner leads those readers through that labyrinth, defining the parameters of training, team management, performance monitoring, conflict resolution, goal setting, and other aspects of a supervisor’s job. He outlines both professional and personal elements, including the importance of self-awareness, an underrated quality that Hiner describes as essential: “Self-aware leaders are better able to comprehend and control their own emotions, which has a favorable impact on how they engage with team members.” Hiner describes the four styles of management: Visionary, Democratic, “Laissez-Faire” (“giving team members a high level of autonomy”), and Coaching (which “focuses on developing and mentoring team members to help them reach their full potential”). He goes over these basics with a brisk prose style and numerous bulleted points for maximum usefulness—readers feeling overwhelmed by their new managerial responsibilities will find the fundamentals laid out with exceptional clarity, but experienced supervisors will also find much good advice here. “As a leader, embody accountability in your own actions and behaviors,” he advises, for example. “Your team will take cues from your actions and emulate them.” Workers of all kinds who’ve dealt with poor managers will wish Hiner had spent more time on the toxic elements of the workplace (either how to avoid or not contribute to them), but the practical thinking he offers about time management and conflict resolution will be valuable to those with any level of expertise.

A briskly written, informative foundation for management.