About the Book

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Table of Contents | About the Authors

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Are you the boss you need to be? As good as your firm expects you to be? Good enough to have real impact and influence? Good enough to achieve your career aspirations?

Managing and leading – the two sides of being the boss – are difficult and growing even harder. You must get the best from your people in a tough environment, meet the ever-rising expectations of your firm, satisfy more demanding customers, and besides all that, prepare yourself for greater challenges.

How are you doing? As you've surely discovered, becoming a great boss is a journey of years, not weeks or months.

Being the Boss can help, no matter where you are on your journey. In it, Harvard Business School's Linda Hill and manager/executive Kent Lineback combine six decades of research, teaching, practice, and observation to provide the insights and information you need.

Hill and Lineback explain why most managers get stuck: Some are content with just getting by. But most stop making progress because they don't understand how to become a great boss, what great bosses actually do, or where they currently stand in comparison with where they should be.

Being the Boss provides this crucial understanding. At its heart are the 3 Imperatives – Manage Yourself, Manage Your Network, Manage Your Team – that capture the essentials of being a great boss in today's changing organizations. Mastering the Imperatives is your goal.

But knowing the goal isn't enough. To reach it, you must assess yourself constantly. Thus, throughout Being the Boss, you're led to measure yourself against what's required. At the end, you will clearly understand your strengths, where you need to make progress, and how to move forward.

Whether you're new or experienced, Being the Boss can serve as your essential guide in determining where you are on your journey to become the great boss your firm, your people, and you need you to be.

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Acknowledgments
Why We Wrote This Book

Introduction: Where Are You on Your Journey?

1. Your 3 Imperatives as a Manager

PART ONE: Manage Yourself

2. I'm the Boss!

3. I'm Your Friend!

4. Can People Trust You?

Part One Summary: Where Are You on Your Journey?

PART TWO: Manage Your Network

5. Understand the Reality of Your Organization

6. Weave Your Own Web of Influence

7. Don't Forget Your Boss

Part Two Summary: Where Are You on Your Journey?

PART THREE: Manage Your Team

8. Define the Future

9. Be Clear About How Your Team Works

10. Your Team Members Are Individuals Too

11. Manage Through Your Daily Work

Part Three Summary: Where Are You on Your Journey?

12. Completing Your Journey

Epilogue
Appendix: Reynolds Education Organization Chart and List of Characters
Notes
Selected References
Index
About the Authors

About the Authors

Linda A. Hill, Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School, chairs the HBS Leadership Initiative, headed the team that developed HBS's required MBA leadership course, has chaired several HBS executive education courses, including the High Potentials Leadership Program, and is author of Becoming a Manager and numerous HBR articles and elearning modules.

Kent Lineback spent nearly 30 years as a manager and executive in business and government, is now a writer and collaborator, and is coauthor (with Randy Komisar) of the bestseller The Monk and the Riddle.