Nobody gets into advertising to become a manager. But if you’re good at it, that’s where you end up.
Inevitably, your job moves from making things to nurturing your teams’ ideas, managing their careers, and taking the hits so they can do the work. It’s the hardest pivot in our business outside of landing your first job.
And the industry is terrible at preparing creatives for it.
I struggled with this transition more than I’d like to admit. Watching other managers helped. The great ones showed me what to aim for and the bad ones showed me what to avoid. But osmosis has its limits.
So I started reading. Dozens of leadership books later, these are the five I keep turning to.
1. Herding Tigers, by Todd Henry
This book is built for the moment when a creative pivots from being a maker to leading a team of other makers. Henry gets into this identity shift without making it feel like homework. It gave me a way to put words around my own leadership style, and you can’t lead with intention until you know what you stand for.
If you only read one book on this list, read this one. I buy a copy for any new CD on my team.
2. Leaders Eat Last, by Simon Sinek
Once you understand your leadership style, this book will help you decode how to be a leader people want to follow.
Sinek gets into why people do their best work for leaders who protect them, and why they shut down around leaders who don’t. It made me view leadership as debt I owe my team. If you see me get in the food line last, now you know why.
