The Making of a Manager: Summary, and What the Research Says About Learning to Manage

What the book argues

The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks to You is by Julie Zhuo. Portfolio published it on March 19, 2019 (Penguin Random House, n.d.; Open Library, n.d.). The author's site describes her as one of Silicon Valley's top product design executives, with a computer science degree from Stanford (Zhuo, n.d.).

The book's starting claim, as the author's site puts it, is that great managers are made, not born (Zhuo, n.d.). The publisher pitches it as a handbook for new managers, veteran leaders and people hoping to be promoted. It says Zhuo became a manager at 25 and draws on her experience managing teams of tens to hundreds of people, and it lists topics such as what separates great managers from average ones, hiring, and building trust with a team (Penguin Random House, n.d.). A blurb from Daniel Pink on the author's site sums up the structure as purpose, people and process (Zhuo, n.d.).

In my words: the book treats management as a set of learnable habits, explained by someone who learned them recently enough to remember what was confusing.

Who it is for

First-time managers, especially those promoted from inside a team they used to belong to. It is a practical book, not a theory of management. A getAbstract review called its advice clear and engaging, if somewhat familiar (getAbstract, 2020). In my view, readers outside technology companies will need to translate some of the examples to their own setting.

What the research says

The book's central claim, that management can be learned, is one the research can test, because manager training has been tested in randomized trials.

Training works on knowledge more than on results. Collins and Holton (2004) pooled 83 studies of managerial leadership development. According to their abstract, effects were large on knowledge, moderate to large on expertise, and smaller on what they call system outcomes, the results for the organization. The pool mixes controlled and uncontrolled designs, so the precise sizes are less certain than the pattern.

Training plus reminders changed how employees saw their managers. Haunstrup and Jensen (2024) randomly assigned 226 managers in 34 Danish job centers to leadership training combined with short, timed reminders, or to no training. Eight months later, employees of the trained managers rated them higher on transformational leadership, by about a third of a standard deviation. Many employees did not answer the follow-up survey, which is a real caution, but the design is strong.

Specific behaviors can move, a little. In one Swedish municipality, Grill, Pousette and Björnsdotter (2024) randomized managers to a behavioral training program. Employees later rated the trained managers slightly better at goal setting, feedback and listening. The effects were small and some were judged at a relaxed statistical threshold, so this is evidence of a modest shift, not a transformation.

In one company, how the organization treated new managers mattered too. Chen and colleagues (2011) studied newly recruited middle managers in a large Chinese telecom company, in an experiment where they discussed a conflict under different organizational values. According to their abstract, an organization that valued relationships and open discussion helped new managers settle in and build cooperative goals, compared with one that avoided discussion. It is one company and a scenario design, so I take it as a hint that the surroundings shape how well a new manager settles in.

Where the evidence is thin

No study I use tests this book, or any handbook, as the way someone learns to manage. The trials test structured training programs, usually with coaching or reminders built in. Reading a book is a much lighter dose. The evidence also says more about how employees rate their managers than about team results, and the strongest trials come from public organizations in Scandinavia, which may not match a fast-growing technology company.

How it maps to the Unfrozen Loop

This mapping is my judgment. A new manager's first months touch three parts of the Unfrozen Loop. The week-0 baseline, writing down where things stand before you change anything, is a natural first step for anyone taking over a team. Start it close to the work describes the manager's real job during a change: leading the rollout with the team. And Review on a rhythm, then hold the pace is where the training evidence points, because the trial that changed managers' behavior paired the training with reminders over time.

What I take from it

The book is a good first read for a new manager, and its central claim holds up. The research adds a warning that applies to any book: knowing what to do is the easy part. If you read it, pick one practice, put a reminder in your calendar to use it every week for two months, and ask your team at the end whether they noticed. For a research-based companion, see Becoming a Manager, and for more options, the reading list for new managers.