Management Skills

The real guide to management & leadership

Nobody tells you this about management: it’s a completely different job from the one you were good at before they promoted you.

This page collects everything I’ve written about management and leadership, whether you just got promoted and you’re panicking or you’ve been managing for years and something feels off.

Management Skills

Just became a manager?

First-time manager survival guide

Nobody trained you for this. You were great at your job, and now you're managing your peers. Here's what I'd say to me when I became a manager.

Dear Peter: Why'd they make me a manager?

WHO LET THIS HAPPEN?

Dealing with a bad manager

How to deal with a bad manager

Your boss is the problem. You know it, your coworkers know it, and yet nothing changes. Here's a practical framework for surviving — and eventually escaping — bad management.

Dear Peter: My boss is a "Nice Guy," so why am I miserable?

A reader struggles with a kind but ineffective boss who avoids conflict and feedback, creating anxiety and stagnation despite good intentions.

Building and growing your team

Beyond lip service: what real mentorship looks like

Mentorship in the workplace is often treated like an afterthought despite being highly valuable, yet rarely receives proper structure or investment from organizations.

Matchmaker, matchmaker

1:1s shouldn't feel like a rollercoaster ride. And not just principles and abstractions – what do I specifically look for?

The fun ones

Gandalf and the Golden Girls

Is it finally time for Gandalf to give up saving the world, and sit down for a game of bridge?

Dark Lord Sauron MBA

Can confirm: having the Eye of Sauron upon you as the Dark Lord himself tears apart your marketing material is.. terrifying.

Need help figuring this out?

That's literally what I do. Coaching works best when we can turn all this good thinking into an actual plan.

Here's how we work together →