This year I’ve been reading fewer books on professional topics, but the ones I do read I choose very carefully. I didn’t pick up Mom, I’m a Team Lead! right away: first I listened to colleagues’ feedback, then I looked into what other readers were saying about it. And only after that did I decide it was worth reading myself — because the topic of growing from an individual contributor into a manager has always interested me. I myself spent a long time trying to sit on two chairs at once, until I finally moved fully into “pure” management (although I still don’t shy away from working with my hands when there’s no other choice).
The main goal the author set for herself in this book is to show how any manager needs to grow — starting almost from the very first steps, when just yesterday you were simply an executor (even a highly skilled one), and today you’re already responsible for other employees in the company. Marina breaks down the main fears and typical mistakes along this path. And that alone is extremely valuable, because not every young manager is lucky enough to have a good mentor who can help them deal with such fears and challenges.
I have to admit, though, that at first I reacted somewhat skeptically when Marina mentioned that she gained virtually all of her experience (10 years) in a single company with a single culture — one she was clearly very lucky with. Because she was genuinely fortunate: she had a manager who helped her grow, and the team relationships were built according to healthy rules, judging by her descriptions. But the harshest school of management is learned when things aren’t so rosy. And the lack of such tough experience is felt a bit in the book, because it’s easy to act “correctly” and “by the book” when the company and leadership allow you to. You need to be even more prepared to grow and solve problems in situations where circumstances make that much harder.
Of course, one might say: “Why work at such a company? Go find another!” But that’s not always possible — the job market doesn’t welcome everyone with open arms, especially young and inexperienced managers. And besides, there are no ideal companies in the world. There are better ones and worse ones, and far more of them will be not quite what you’d like (I personally believe that if all companies were ideal, strong managers would barely be needed at all). And finally — the harsh school gives you far more problem-solving skills, meaning you’ll be fully capable of working even in good conditions later on. But the other way around? That’s far from guaranteed.
However, despite my initial doubts, I changed my mind as I read on. No, Marina really doesn’t describe the toughest situations. But I realized that wasn’t her goal in the first place. She shows what you, as a manager, should strive for — and what kind of culture you should be building around yourself. Because if something isn’t working the way you’d like, or the way would be best for the company and the project, it can be changed. Not overnight, but it can.
And the advice on where to move, what to focus on — that’s quite universal for managers. Because even though the book is called I’m a Team Lead, Marina is really talking about leaders at different levels, not just the heads of small teams we usually label as “team leads.”
I won’t list everything the book covers, but I’ll highlight only the points I personally find most important — and if they catch your interest, go read Marina’s book. She digs into these topics in more detail, without padding or fluff — everything is to the point and useful.
The very first thing she starts with is the realization of how a manager differs from an ordinary individual contributor. And in my experience, even leads with many years under their belt struggle for a long time to fully accept this difference. Yet it can be expressed very simply: the moment you become a manager, your manager no longer cares what you can do with your own hands. What matters is how well your team performs. But many leads continue to believe they must be the strongest specialists on their team.
Marina describes this problem several times in the book, from several angles. As for me, I always tell my lead-level subordinates: if they have control over building their team (sometimes they don’t have this luxury), they must hire people who are better than them at least in something. Otherwise, you will never achieve real growth. Even if you were once an expert programmer, you will no longer have the time (and your manager won’t allow it either) to keep leveling up your programming skills — that’s not why you were made a manager. And if your team can solve expert-level tasks better than you — that means you’re doing great. The ideal situation for a manager is when they could be lying on a beach and the team would still handle everything perfectly without them.
From that follows the second conclusion, which Marina also stresses several times in the book: you must now prioritize your tasks so that you always do first the things that other people depend on. If you fail to complete one of your own tasks, you delay only yourself. But if the team is waiting for your decision — the entire project is essentially standing still.
The next consequence that follows from this is: if your team lacks resources, hire quickly — don’t put it off. And it’s important to start doing this not when all deadlines are already on fire, people are overworking, and collapsing from exhaustion, but when you only foresee that resources will soon be insufficient. The cost of delaying will be much higher than having a slightly underloaded employee for the first couple of months.
However, you also need to approach this wisely. During interviews, check carefully whether you really need this person. Will they actually solve the problem for which you started hiring in the first place? And if you’re unsure — the golden rule says: “don’t hire.” Not that we always have this luxury, of course. Moreover, even if you did hire someone, set clear goals for the probation period, validate all the risks you noted during the interview, and check whether any of them materialized. And if the person can’t handle things already at this stage — part ways. Because it’s far easier to let go of someone who didn’t pass probation than to drag along someone who was fully hired (and that’s true not only psychologically for the lead, but also for the team).
The next important issue raised in the book is firings. Marina devotes quite a lot of attention to it, though across different chapters — examining the topic from different angles and as a consequence of different managerial challenges. Why is this a problem at all? First, almost all people find firing employees unpleasant. If you think that’s not the case, you simply don’t see how deeply many managers agonize over it. Some suffer much more than the people being let go — trust me. Second, the inability or unwillingness to fire — and especially to fire on time — is a delayed-action mine. It will explode sooner or later, only the damage may be much greater, and sometimes even critical.
Many inexperienced managers believe they should give a person a second and even a third chance — that they should help them improve. And yes, you should talk about mistakes, because not everyone even realizes they’re doing something differently from what you expect. However, if a person doesn’t improve, you must accept that people do not change. Or rather, they might change over the course of many years — but only if they themselves want to. And if you’ve said it once, said it twice, and the person keeps making the same mistakes, you can repeat it a hundred times — it won’t make a difference. But how much of your time and your team’s energy will be burned in the process — that’s what almost no one bothers to calculate.
Here’s a quote from the book that I agree with completely. I probably have more points of my own, but these are definitely among the most important:
To conclude, here are the most common answers managers give to the question, “For what reasons should an employee be fired?”
• Does not perform the agreed-upon work; sabotages the workflow.
• Employees who constantly create conflict and damage the team’s working atmosphere should be let go.
• Someone who behaves dishonestly and always shifts blame for failures onto others should be dismissed. Likewise, someone who continually plays the victim (“I didn’t finish the project because the designer didn’t send me the mockup, and reminding the designer isn’t my job”).
And here Marina does an excellent job of showing that once you’ve informed an employee they are being let go, all those “but you still have two months to finish your tasks” are pure fairy tales. A dismissed employee has zero motivation to finish anything for you. Yes, a conscientious and responsible person might still try to complete what they promised — but even they will have to force themselves, and in parallel they will be busy urgently looking for a new job, which, in their personal hierarchy of needs, is far more important than finishing something for the people who just fired them. So if you decide to let someone go — don’t keep them “because the law allows us to keep you.”
Marina also separately discusses how to develop your subordinates. And it’s important to understand that only those who want to grow will grow. If a person doesn’t want development, they won’t care about any “growth goals” you set. Just find out whether they need it or not. And if they don’t — but they’re a good employee — let them continue doing well what they already do well. But if someone does want to grow, find out where they want to develop. And here the advice from Patrick Lencioni’s The Truth About Employee Engagement can be very helpful.
The book also emphasizes how important informal communication within the team is. In our era of remote work, this becomes even more crucial. Informal communication allows you to get to know each other better and understand each other’s motivations. If you only see each other during work calls, you know nothing about what a person is like in everyday life. And if they always seem displeased by what you say, maybe it has nothing to do with you — maybe that’s simply how they behave in general, even when talking about their beloved spouse. That’s why you need to seek out any opportunity to interact. If you’re in the same office — go to the smoking area together, go to lunch. If you’re in the same city — go out together on weekends. If you only work remotely — try at least occasionally to hold video hangouts to talk about non-work topics, films, games.
But the most important thing is this: once you become a manager, you no longer belong only to yourself. Your success is the success of your team. And that is precisely why you need to devote enormous attention and time to it. Most likely, 50–60% of your working hours will now be administrative tasks and communication. In some cases you may spend almost the entire day on calls and meetings, where you can quickly answer important questions from the team and give guidance. Because people expect you to help the team do their work more effectively and with higher quality.
Not everyone will like the decisions you make. But you’re not supposed to be everyone’s favorite person or each employee’s best friend. A good manager sometimes has to make difficult decisions. In a healthy culture, people judge by results. And results are not only financial — they include team cohesion, overall culture, and productivity. A manager makes decisions with the future in mind; many of them will show their impact in a week, in a month, in a year. Be ready for that.
But if you’ve decided to become a manager, I highly recommend this book. I lowered my rating just slightly because it doesn’t address the case of “you’ve ended up in a tough culture/company/project.” That scenario requires somewhat different skills and approaches. But if you already have a basic understanding of where to move and how to think, you’ll be able to handle it. Though, of course, it’s always better to work in good companies with healthy cultures.
My rating: 4.5/5
