Workbook
The New Director's Workbook
The Leap from Manager to Director and What Nobody Tells You About It
Managing managers is different from managing people. You need to become someone you have not been.
For the manager who has been promoted to director and is discovering that the skills that made them excellent at managing individuals are not the skills that leading leaders requires.
The Name It First Experience
The move from manager to director changes the work entirely. You stop developing individuals and start developing managers. Your New Director Charter moves from identity audit to forward design, producing a leadership identity declaration: who you are at this level, what you will and will not do, and what your managers need from you.
You can opt into 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins from your account. We recommend you do — the point is to see what changed.
Sample questions
- What is different about leading managers versus leading individual contributors — and have you let yourself name what you don't know yet?
- What kind of director do you want to be — and what does that look like in the room, in the hard conversation, in the decision you didn't want to make?
- What did you stop doing when you became a director that made you good as a manager — and was that the right thing to let go?
Research basis
Charan Drotter and Noel leadership pipeline theory on managing managers passage / Avolio and Bass leadership identity at expanding scope / Maslach burnout inventory on role transition stress / Cruess and Cruess professional identity formation / Zenger and Folkman extraordinary leader research
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Every format asks the same questions and produces the same document.
Print Paperbackpersonalize
A real book and a pen. Write in the margins. The most permanent version of you on a page.
$22.99
eBook + journal
The full guide on any screen, with a companion journal to write your answers by hand.
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Audiobook
We read every question and every scenario aloud. For the commute, the walk, the dishes.
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Hardcoverpersonalize
The keepsake edition — sewn, ribboned, made to sit on a shelf and be returned to.
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Digital Fill + membership+membership
Answer on screen. Your responses save as you go and assemble into your finished document.
$12.99
Hands-Free Interactive + membership+membership
Listen to each question and speak your answer. We capture it. You never touch a keyboard.
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Everything packages
The Paperback Everything Package
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The Hardcover Everything Package
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The Premium Hardcover Everything Package
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Choose your pace.
The Essential path takes you to your finished document by the questions that matter most. The Full-depth path walks every question, every scenario, every angle. Both produce the same signed document — one just goes deeper on the way there.
Essential path
Shorter sessions. The questions that go directly to the document.
Full depth
Every question. Every scenario, every angle.
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