Olivia: The single biggest lie we're told about career progression is that being great at your job qualifies you to lead others. In fact, the skills that got you promoted are often the very things that will make you a terrible manager. Jackson: That is a terrifying thought. So you’re telling me that all the hard work, the late nights, the focus that got me the promotion… that’s all a liability now? My resume is suddenly a list of bad habits? Olivia: In a way, yes. It's a paradox that trips up so many high-achievers. And it's the core idea we're exploring today through Ryan Hawk's book, Welcome to Management: How to Grow From Top Performer to Excellent Leader. Jackson: Ryan Hawk… isn't he the guy with that huge leadership podcast? The one who interviews everyone from CEOs to Navy SEALs? Olivia: Exactly. And what makes him so compelling is that he's lived this. He was a professional quarterback, then a top sales VP at a massive company. He wrote this book after his own jarring transition to management, which literally started with a team member having a personal crisis in his office on his first day. Jackson: Whoa. Talk about being thrown in the deep end. No training manual for that. Okay, I'm in. Let's start with that paradox, because it feels like the ground is shifting under my feet.

Olivia: It is. Because as an individual contributor, your value is your output. Your code, your sales numbers, your designs. You are the star player. When you become a manager, your value is no longer your output; it's the output of your team. Your job is to make them the stars. Jackson: That’s a huge identity shift. You go from being the hero of the story to… what, the director? The coach? Olivia: Precisely. And Hawk has this incredible story about it. He was a top salesperson, always at the top of the leaderboard. Then he gets promoted to manage a team that is dead last. Seventy-seven percent of their target, ranked last in the entire company. Jackson: Oh, that’s brutal. Your reputation is instantly tied to the worst-performing team. The temptation to say, "Hey, this isn't my fault, I just got here!" must have been immense. Olivia: It was. He said his first instinct was to separate himself, to make excuses. But he realized that was the old mindset. The new job required a complete shift. He had to embrace what he calls true humility. And this is a key point: humility isn't thinking less of yourself, it's thinking of yourself less. Jackson: Okay, I like that distinction. It's not about being a doormat; it's about shifting your focus. Olivia: Exactly. So instead of worrying about his own reputation, he poured everything into his team. He sat with them, coached them, and focused entirely on helping them succeed. He made their success his project. And the result? They went from dead last to the top of the rankings. And that success is what got him his next promotion to a director role. Jackson: That’s a great story, but let's be real. 'Humility' and 'vulnerability' are such corporate buzzwords. What does that actually look like in a team meeting on a Tuesday morning? Does it mean saying "I don't know" to your team? Doesn't that just kill your credibility? Olivia: That’s the counterintuitive part. Hawk argues it actually builds credibility. He tells a story about his former boss, Dustyn Kim, who he says was a master of this. She’d get in a room with her directors and openly say, "I'm not sure what the right path is here. I have some fears about this project. What are you all seeing on the front lines?" Jackson: And people didn't see her as weak or incompetent? Olivia: The opposite. It did two things. First, it gave her team permission to be honest and share their own uncertainties, which is where the best solutions come from. It created psychological safety. Second, it showed she trusted them. It wasn't her job to have all the answers; it was her job to build a team that could find them together. It reframed leadership as a collaborative search for truth, not a top-down directive. Jackson: Huh. So vulnerability isn't a weakness; it's an invitation. It's a tool to unlock the team's collective intelligence. Olivia: That's the perfect way to put it. It’s the shift from "knowing and telling" to "knowing and asking." You stop being the source of all answers and start being the facilitator of discovery. That’s the internal rewiring you have to do.

Olivia: And that's the perfect bridge. Once you've made that internal shift, you have to build the external machine. It's not enough to feel humble; you have to act in a way that builds a culture of trust. Jackson: This is where you earn the right to lead, right? The title doesn't just grant you respect. Olivia: Not at all. In the foreword to the book, General Stanley McChrystal, the former commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, makes this brilliant analogy. He says leadership is like land navigation. When he was a cadet, they gave him a map and a compass. The map is the old way of doing things—the rules, the org chart. But in a complex, changing environment, the map is useless. Jackson: Because the terrain is always shifting. Olivia: Exactly. McChrystal says a true leader puts down the map and picks up the compass. The compass is your set of values, your principles. You use it to navigate the unknown, to chart a new path. Your job isn't to follow the old map; it's to create a new one with your team. Jackson: I love that. It’s so empowering. But it’s also a bit abstract. How does a new manager, on a practical level, start using their "compass" to build that culture? Olivia: It starts with the smallest, most seemingly insignificant details. This is my favorite story in the entire book. It's about the legendary UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden. He won 10 national championships. And do you know what he did on the first day of practice every single season? Jackson: Run drills? Give a big motivational speech? Olivia: He taught his players how to put on their socks. Jackson: Come on. Seriously? These are elite, Division I athletes. Olivia: Seriously. He would sit them down and demonstrate, step-by-step, how to roll the sock on perfectly, making sure there were no wrinkles or folds. He’d tell them, "Wrinkles cause blisters. Blisters make you miss practice. Missing practice makes you a worse player. And that hurts the team." Jackson: Wow. Okay, so it was never about the socks. Olivia: It was never about the socks! It was about establishing a culture where details matter. It was about showing that championships are built on a foundation of executing the fundamentals flawlessly. He was building credibility by demonstrating that nothing was too small to be done with excellence. He was earning their trust by showing he cared about their well-being, right down to their feet. Jackson: So from a General navigating a war to a coach teaching about socks... it's all about demonstrating that you care about the fundamentals, which builds credibility. But what happens when you try to build this kind of culture and you get resistance? You know, the cynical veteran on the team who rolls their eyes and says, "We're really talking about socks?" Olivia: That's a huge challenge. The book emphasizes that you have to be relentless in upholding the standard, and it has to apply to everyone, especially you. But it also comes down to who is on your team in the first place. Hawk is a big believer in what he calls the "no asshole rule." You can have all the talent in the world, but if you're not kind and collaborative, you don't belong on the team. A huge part of building the machine is managing the roster—hiring for culture and being willing to make the tough call to remove people who are toxic to it. Jackson: So you have to be both a coach and a general manager. You're shaping the players and picking them. Olivia: You have to be. Because a culture of excellence can't survive with people who are actively working against it. Your job is to protect the system.

Jackson: So when you boil it all down, this transition from performer to manager isn't just a new job title. It's a fundamental rewiring of your professional identity. You go from being the hero of the story to being the person who helps other people become heroes. Olivia: Exactly. And that's the real payoff. The book makes it clear that the goal isn't just to avoid being an incompetent manager. The goal is to embrace a mindset of continuous growth. Hawk quotes the NBA star J.J. Redick, who has this mantra of a 'never arrived' mindset. After a long and successful career, he still believes he's a work in progress. As a leader, 'you've never arrived, you're always becoming.' Jackson: That's a powerful thought to end on. It makes you ask yourself: am I focused on my own performance, or am I building a system for others to succeed? Am I still trying to be the star player, or have I embraced being the coach? Olivia: A great question for all of us. And we'd love to hear your own stories about making this transition. Find us on our socials and share the best or worst piece of advice you got when you first became a manager. We want to hear the real-world stories. Jackson: Absolutely. Let's learn from each other. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.