The transition to managing managers requires a fundamental identity shift from individual contributor to enabler. A leader's value is no longer in their personal output. They must ask, "Is it more important that I do the work, or that the work gets done?" This question forces a necessary focus on delegation, empowerment, and system-building.

To gain the freedom to lead your own way, first ask your manager to define success. Then, confirm your understanding by repeating it back. Finally, frame your request for autonomy as the best method to achieve their stated goals.

Effective delegation isn't just handing off a task. It's about codifying your personal preferences and decision-making process into a repeatable algorithm. This allows an assistant to replicate your desired outcomes autonomously over time, moving beyond simple task completion to genuine leverage.

Mandating new processes, like reducing meetings, is ineffective if the collective beliefs driving old behaviors (e.g., lack of trust) are not addressed. To make change stick, leaders must first surface, discuss, and realign the team's shared assumptions to support the new structure.

Contrary to the popular bottoms-up startup ethos, a top-down approach is crucial for speed in a large organization. It prevents fragmentation that arises from hundreds of teams pursuing separate initiatives, aligning everyone towards unified missions for faster, more coherent progress.

Using the classic "ham and eggs" fable, projects fail when filled with "chickens" who are merely involved versus "pigs" who are fully committed. To ensure accountability, organizations must assign single-threaded leaders ("pigs") who own an outcome end-to-end, rather than committees of contributors.

Managers cannot just be soldiers executing orders. If you don't truly believe in a strategy, you cannot effectively inspire your team. You must engage leadership to find an angle you can genuinely support or decompose the idea into testable hypotheses you can commit to.

Gaining genuine team alignment is more complex than getting a superficial agreement. It involves actively surfacing unspoken assumptions and hidden contexts to ensure that when the team agrees, they are all agreeing to the same, fully understood plan.

When progress on a complex initiative stalls with middle management, don't hesitate to escalate to senior leadership. A brief, well-prepared C-level discussion can cut through uncertainty, validate importance, and accelerate alignment across teams or with external partners.