25 Resources to Help New Managers be Successful in 2021

Top 5 Blogs to Subscribe to 

Sometimes you don’t have time to search for the best advice on being a great manager. Subscribing or following great blogs is a great way to save time on finding information. When you follow a quality blog, you know you’re getting up to date information in conscience and easy to consume format. Here are the top five blogs I recommend you check out to help boost your management skills. 

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1. Seth’s Blog

Best-selling author, entrepreneur, and leader of change Seth Godin gives you personal insights into the world of leadership in his blog. 

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His blog features inspiring reflections on leadership, management, and marketing. 

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He is a renowned speaker and writer who motivates thousands of people around the world. 

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His blog is especially useful for helping with effective problem solving and definition. Seth teaches you how to cut away the ‘fat’ of a problem until only the solution is left, so 

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If you’re especially concerned about a crowded mind getting in the way of effective management, this is the blog for you! 

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2. Lattice 

Lattice is the best place to stay up-to-date on the best practices in the HR world. 

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This site hosts numerous helpful articles to help you with any management concern you may stumble across in your experience. 

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I recommend signing up for their newsletter for a weekly dose of insightful management strategy. 

3. Harvard Business Review 

HBR is one of my favourite business leadership resources. 

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It is sponsored directly by Harvard University and shares daily posts from several contributors. 

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This is the ultimate blogging resource for new managers as it hosts many topics, including leadership, negotiation, strategy, operations, marketing, and finance. 

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And what makes it even better is the authors. The level of writing and insight found at HBR can’t be beaten. 

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You can either sign-up for various subscription levels to view HBR articles, or view them for free with a limit of three/month.  

 4. James Clear

Effective leadership comes from being able to manage your team and yourself effectively. 

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James Clear is an excellent read for helping you learn how to develop better habits to influence your leadership abilities. 

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Clear unpacks the science and psychology behind better habits and how to rid yourself of bad ones. 

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His blog includes a discussion of productivity, decisions making, performance, and motivation. 

5. Unicorn Labs 

You wouldn’t be taking my advice if you didn’t think I had anything good to say, right? 

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The ultimate goal of Unicorn Labs is to develop managers into Unicorn Leaders. 

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I post an article a week focusing on various management topics, with a specific focus on how to help you build an all-star team. 

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Check out my featured posts on the right sidebar, and be sure to sign up for my newsletter for weekly management advice.

Top 5 Tools to Use

Technology was created to make our lives easier. Having useful tools behind you is the best way to achieve success in your new position. Check out these five apps to help support you in your new role. 

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1. A DISC Assessment

Emotional Intelligence is the most important skill of any manager and it starts with knowing yourself. 

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If you want to be able to manage other people effectively you need to understand your own strengths and weaknesses and how you interact with people. 

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Take a DISC Assessment to find what personality you are and how you interact best with others. 

2. Todoist 

The classic stereo type of managers holding a never ending to-do list couldn’t be more true. 

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As a new manager a larger to-do list may seem intimidating, but tools like Todoist can help you handle it. 

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Todoist is a to-do list app used by millions of people worldwide. 

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It allows you to keep track of everything in one place and easily prioritize your various tasks. 

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If you’re looking to post your productivity this app is a necessity.  

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3. Miro 

Miro is a meeting, workshop, and collaboration tool. 

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Think of it as an online whiteboard. 

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This tool makes it easy to flesh out ideas and brainstorm with your entire team, all online. 

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Everyone on the team can easily create various sticky notes, webs and add pictures and comments all at once. 

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I recommend this tool for teams who work excessively on creative projects. 

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4. Pocket

As a new manager you’re going to have a lot of reading material to get through. 

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But you’re not going to have time to read it all at once. 

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That’s what makes Pocket a great tool for managers. It allows you to save articles, videos, and stories to create your own content library. 

5. Calendy

With management comes many different meetings and going back and forth through email to schedule them is not efficient. 

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That’s why you’re going to need Calendly. 

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This tool allows you to easily schedule all of your meetings without the back and forth of emails. 

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You can even cap the number of meetings that can be booked in a week.

Top 5 TED Talks to Watch 

TED talks are great ways to get new ideas and feel inspired. Here are five talks that will help adopt a top management mindset. 

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1. Drew Dudley - Everyday Leadership 

Drew Dudley started his leadership journey as a Leadership Development Coordinator for the University of Toronto. 

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He founded Nuance Leadership Development Services, which creates curriculum for communities, organizations, and individuals. 

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This talk shows us how we all create leadership in our everyday lives. 

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Even if you don’t realize it, you impact others. 

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This talk will help change your perspective on leadership and the change you’re capable of. 

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2. Carol Dweck - The Power of Believing You Can Improve 

Carol Dweck is a Stanford University professor and author of Mindset.

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She is known for her work in motivation research and coined the term ‘growth mindset.’

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In this talk, Dweck discusses what it means to have a growth mindset and how to foster it in your team members. 

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Instead of avoiding failure or weakness, she encourages you to change your mindset and focus on skill improvement. 

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3. Dan Ariely - What Makes Us Feel Good About Our Work 

Dan Ariely is an acclaimed psychologist and behavioural economist at Duke University. 

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He is a founding member of the Center of Advanced Hindsight and the author of numerous bestselling books. 

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Dan Ariely focuses his research on the forces that influence human behaviour, motivation, and often irrationality. 

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Ariely shares three key motivators that create employee success in this talk and how you can use them on your team. 

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4. Dan Pink - The Puzzle of Motivation 

Human motivation is a fleeting mystery to all of us, but Dan Pink helps shed some light on the subject. 

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His entertaining talk reveals a better way of approaching management. 

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Like Ariely’s talk, Pink discusses how money and bonuses aren’t the key motivators we thought they were. 

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Pink shares how too much external motivation dulls thinking and blocks creative thinking. 

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He shows better methods for motivating your team to increase quality, wellbeing, and productivity. 

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5. Tom Wujec - Build a Tower Build a Team 

As a manager, your priority is to create the best possible team. 

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In this talk, Wuject shows you what you can do to improve team cohesion and productivity through the lens of the ‘marshmallow problem,' invented by Peter Skillman.

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It turns out what makes the most successful teams could surprise you. 

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Watch the video below to find out what makes the best teams.

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Top 5 Podcasts to Listen to

Although the morning commute from your bed to your office is much shorter than what you’re used to, I’m sure you still have time to fit in a morning podcast while you eat breakfast. Check out these five podcasts to help you think about what you can do to improve your leadership and management skills. 

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1. Master of Scale 

This is a business and finance podcast hosted by the co-founder of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman. 

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Each week Hoffman interviews a different business leader and chats with them about the ideas and actions that made their company successful. 

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In each episode, Hoffman presents how he thinks a business successfully scaled and tested its validity by interviewing its founders. 

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The guest list comes from various industries and has been quite impressive, including Bill Gates and Gwyneth Paltrow. 

2. The Gallup Podcast

The Gallup Podcast is hosted by Gallap’s Editor-in-Chief, Mohamed Younis. 

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In his episodes he discusses what society’s citizen’s think about the most pressing issues in the workplace. 

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He demonstrates how leaders and managers can use their perspective to help people make informed decisions. 

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3. Beyond the To-Do List

If you’re becoming overwhelmed by your exponentially growing to-do list as a new manager, this is the podcast for you. 

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Beyond the To-Do List host, Erik Fisher talks with real people who implement useful and practical productivity strategies to balance their professional and personal lives. 

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This podcast explores all productivity factors, including working right the first time and getting great work done that pushes your goals forward. 

4. Supermanagers 

Supermanagers is a podcast hosted by the team at Fellow.app. 

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This weekly podcast hosts insightful episodes spanning across various topics of management. 

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The podcast is aimed at managers and leaders who desire to improve their leadership skills and abilities to have a positive impact on their team and organization. 

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You will definitely find some thoughtful episodes here that give you first hand insight into the world of management. 

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5. Leadership and Loyalty 

Trying to get yourself into the same mindset as Fortune 500 executives? Start listening to this podcast. 

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Leadership is constantly changing and what constitutes good leadership today is different than ten years ago. 

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In Leadership and Loyalty, host Dov Baron talks with world-class guests such as Guy Kawasaki, Jordan Harbinger, and John Oates to share the truth about the journeys of devastation to purpose.

The Top 5 Books to Read

If you’re a bookworm like me, you have to check out these top five management books. Each one provides a unique perspective on how you can improve your leadership and the interactions you have with your team members. 

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1. Good to Great by Jim Collins

This is a management book that illustrates how companies transition from good to great and how most fail. 

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In the book, Collins defines greatness and describes seven characteristics of companies that successfully make the transition. 

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This book was a best seller and has been claimed by many as the best management book they’ve ever read. 

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Trust me; this book will take your management from good to great. 

2. The 21 Irrefutable Laws of Leadership by John Maxwell

John Maxwell is one of the world’s top authorities on Leadership. 

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In this book, John breaks down the concept of leadership. 

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Each of the 21 laws he lists has its own chapter sharing personal stories and connections to historically great leaders. 

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This is a quick yet inspiring lead and a great way to get you started on your journey towards better leadership. 

3. The 5 Dysfunctions of a Team by Patrick Lencioni

Lencioni offers his keen intellect and insight through his fascinating retelling of Kathryn Petersen’s story. 

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Petersen, Decision Tech’s CEO, faces the critical leadership crisis of uniting a team that is so dysfunctional it could destroy an entire company. 

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Throughout the story, Lencioni reveals five dysfunctions that even the best teams struggle through and outlines an actionable model to help managers take steps towards better team cohesion. 

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This book will serve you for years to come as you continue to move forward in your management career. 

4. Creativity, INC. by Ed Catmull 

This book is for managers who want to take their team to the next level. It acts as a manual for anyone who strives for creativity and innovation. 

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Creativity Inc gives you an all-access trip into the heart of Pixar Animation. You will learn about all of the company's processes, including their meetings, postmortems, and ‘Braintrust’ sessions. 

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Catmull walks you through building a creative culture and shows you what to do on your team to protect the creative process and reach new heights of innovation. 

5. Culture Code by Daniel Coyle 

As a manager, you must create the ideal environment for your team to perform to the best of their ability, starting with corporate culture. 

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In this book, Coyle goes inside the world’s most successful organization and describes what makes them tick. 

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He details the skills needed to generate team cohesion and cooperation, drawing on examples from various successful companies. 

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From this book, you will learn strategies to help you build trust, learning, and positive change within your team. 

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As a new manager, use this book as a road map to create an environment where innovation and creative problem-solving flourish.