Olivia: The single biggest promotion of your career might be the one that makes you feel like the biggest fraud. Today, we explore why that feeling is not a bug, but a feature of becoming a great leader. Jackson: A feature? That sounds terrifying. I thought promotions were supposed to be a reward, a moment of triumph, not the start of an identity crisis. Olivia: Exactly! And that's the central idea in a fantastic book that's become a bible for new leaders, especially in the tech world: The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo. Jackson: Ah, I've seen that one everywhere. It's got this reputation for being incredibly practical. Olivia: It is, and for good reason. What's incredible is that Zhuo wrote this from personal experience. She joined Facebook as its very first intern and was made a manager at just 25, thrown into leading a team in one of the fastest-growing companies on the planet. She literally had to learn on the job. Jackson: Wow, so she's writing from the trenches, not an ivory tower. No wonder it resonates. She’s not theorizing about management; she’s reporting back from the front lines of a rocket ship. That gives her a totally different kind of credibility. Olivia: It really does. And her journey starts with that exact feeling of being a fraud. She argues that the old idea of a manager as a born leader, someone who just naturally has all the answers, is a destructive myth. The truth is, great managers are made. And the making is often a messy, uncomfortable process.

Jackson: I can definitely relate to that. That feeling of imposter syndrome is so real. You’re sitting in a new chair, with a new title, and everyone is looking at you, and you’re just thinking, 'When are they going to figure out I have no idea what I'm doing?' Olivia: That’s precisely where Zhuo begins. She tells this story about her own promotion. Her boss calls her into a conference room and says, "The team's growing, you get along with everyone, we want you to be a manager." She says yes, feeling like it's just the next step up the ladder. Jackson: The classic battlefield promotion. You're a good soldier, so now you're a general. Good luck. Olivia: Exactly. And the reality hits her the very next day. She has her first one-on-one meeting with a designer who, just yesterday, was her peer. She arrives late, flustered, and the designer just stares at her with this surly expression that says, "You? You're my manager?" Jackson: Oh, that's brutal. The shift from peer to boss is so fraught with peril. You go from being friends, from complaining about the bosses together, to... what? Their evaluator? How do you even start that conversation without it feeling completely fake? Olivia: You don't, not at first. The meeting is a disaster. She feels totally inadequate. She uses this great quote from Alice in Wonderland to describe it: "I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then." It perfectly captures that disorientation. Jackson: That’s such a powerful way to put it. It’s a complete identity shift. So how does she, or how does anyone, move past that initial terror and start to actually be a manager? Olivia: Well, the book argues the first step is to fundamentally redefine the job. It’s not about being the boss, or having the best ideas, or even being the most experienced person in the room. The job is something else entirely.

Jackson: Okay, I’m intrigued. If it’s not about being the boss, what is it about? Olivia: It’s about creating a multiplier effect. Zhuo gives this one-line definition: "Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together." To make that concrete, she uses this brilliant, simple analogy of a lemonade stand. Jackson: A lemonade stand? Okay, I'm listening. Olivia: Imagine you love making lemonade, and you're great at it. You start a stand, and it's a hit. You're doing everything yourself—squeezing lemons, taking money, serving customers. But soon, demand is so high you can't keep up. So you hire your neighbors, Henry and Eliza. Jackson: Right, you expand the team. Olivia: But here's the critical shift. The moment you hire them, your job is no longer to make the best lemonade. Your job is to make sure Henry and Eliza make great lemonade, consistently. Your focus has to shift from your own output to the team's output. Jackson: That makes so much sense. You’re no longer the star player; you’re the coach. Olivia: Precisely. And Zhuo says a manager has three main levers to pull to make that happen: Purpose, People, and Process. Jackson: The three P's. Let me guess. 'Purpose' is the 'why'—why are we selling lemonade and not, say, iced tea? It’s the vision. Olivia: Exactly. Does everyone on the team believe in making the world's best lemonade? Jackson: 'People' is the 'who.' Are Henry and Eliza the right lemon-squeezers for the job? Are they motivated? Do they have the skills they need? Olivia: Perfect. And 'Process' is the 'how.' What's the most efficient way to take orders, make the lemonade, and handle the cash? How do we work together without tripping over each other? Jackson: I love that framework. It's so simple and clear. But it also highlights why so many new managers fail. They get stuck being the best lemonade-seller on the team. They keep grabbing the lemon squeezer from Henry because they can do it "faster" or "better," instead of teaching Henry how to do it well. Olivia: That is the core challenge. Letting go of the individual contributor work that got you promoted in the first place. Your value is no longer in your own hands-on skill, but in your ability to multiply the skills of your entire team. And that requires a completely different set of tools.

Jackson: And I imagine those tools are much more... human. You can have a great process for making lemonade, but if Henry and Eliza don't trust you or feel motivated, the whole stand is going to fall apart. Olivia: You’ve hit on the final, and most important, piece of the puzzle. You can have the best purpose and process, but if your people don't trust you, it's all for nothing. Zhuo is very clear on this. She says the one thing you should never, ever tolerate on your team is a "brilliant jerk." Jackson: Ah, the brilliant jerk. We all know one. The person who delivers amazing results but leaves a trail of emotional wreckage in their wake. So the book argues that a healthy culture trumps raw, toxic talent? Olivia: Absolutely. Because a brilliant jerk has a divider effect, not a multiplier effect. They make the whole team less effective. And Zhuo has this incredible story from Facebook's early days that shows what a strong culture really looks like in practice. Jackson: Okay, give me an example. Olivia: In the early days, a new intern was working on the code and accidentally introduced a bug that took the entire Facebook service down. Jackson: Oh my god. Fired on the spot, right? I would have just walked out and never come back. Olivia: That's what you'd expect. But the opposite happened. His manager came over and apologized to him. Jackson: Apologized to the intern who broke the site? Olivia: Yes. The manager said, "I'm sorry, I should have set you up with better safeguards. This is my fault for not giving you the right training." Then, the entire engineering team held a postmortem, not to find someone to blame, but to analyze the system failure and build better processes so it couldn't happen again. Jackson: Wow. That is a profound cultural statement. Olivia: It is. Zhuo says an organization's culture isn't what's written on the posters. It's what the organization is willing to sacrifice for its values. In that moment, Facebook sacrificed the easy satisfaction of blaming someone for a very public failure. In its place, they chose the values of ownership and learning. That single event defined their culture for years to come.

Jackson: That story ties it all together. Becoming a manager is this journey. It starts with surviving your own personal anxiety and imposter syndrome. Then you have to grasp your new function, which is to be a multiplier for your team using purpose, people, and process. But ultimately, your most powerful role is to be a cultivator of trust and a guardian of the culture. Olivia: Exactly. It’s a craft. And Zhuo's message is deeply hopeful. It’s not about being born a perfect, all-knowing leader. It's about being humble enough to learn, to listen, and to care. As a famous poster at Facebook says, a mantra she ends the book with, the journey is always just "1% finished." Jackson: That's a much less intimidating way to look at it. It gives you permission to not have all the answers. Your job isn't to be perfect; it's to be present and to learn alongside your team. It’s about the making, not the made. Olivia: A perfect summary. And it makes the whole prospect of leadership feel so much more accessible. We'd love to hear from our listeners—what was the moment you realized management was a totally different job than you expected? Share your stories with us on our social channels. Jackson: This is Aibrary, signing off.