Do you come with a User Manual?

Among the more unexpected but valuable things I’ve done as a people leader is authoring my own User Manual.

Throughout my career, I’ve often been asked to describe my work and leadership style. This is especially true when being recruited for a new role, joining a new team or company, interviewing candidates (or candidates interviewing me), onboarding an agency, or building a relationship with a new boss. It’s a question that is most often asked-and-answered in a ‘moment’, and while most experienced leaders are comfortable answering the question, those ‘moments’ are difficult to scale.

Several years ago, I was leading a global marketing team at LinkedIn that grew very quickly - from 65 to ~180 people in 2 years. It was an exciting time. We were finding and onboarding great talent, doing creative and impactful work, and pushing beyond expectations. In doing so, the team became the largest I had managed to that point.

One day, Kristin (a member of my leadership team) came to me with an unusual request: “You need to write a user manual on yourself. People want to better understand who you are and how you operate.” She went on to explain that members of the team - especially new and junior members - were spinning trying to anticipate my working style, how to best engage me in their work, and who I was as a human being. She suggested that “a set of instructions” would shorten the learning curve, inspire creative confidence, and make me more accessible to the team. She was absolutely right.

I found the process of authoring a User Manual difficult but very rewarding. It requires genuine self-awareness and vulnerability. The goal is not to model the perfect leader, but to be transparent on who YOU are and your own unique style. If you get it right, the team shifts gears.

It’s also proven to be an important artefact for setting expectations with stakeholders - be they colleagues, my own manager, people I mentor, and companies and leadership teams I advise. When done properly, a User Manual doesn’t just clarify how you operate, it also confirms your expectations and boundaries for how you work.

Here are 5 steps I recommend for creating your own user manual:  

1. Find Inspiration. Personal User Manuals are gaining popularity. There are a lot of great articles and templates available on LinkedIn and online. You’ll also likely discover things from others that mirror your own style. Drop these into a blank doc as a starting point.*
2. Form a 'Personal Board of Directors.' Getting feedback on your first draft is critical. My first draft was biassed towards who I aspired to be. Bring together 3-5 people that know you very well. These could be people you work with (or have worked with), current/past managers, mentors and even family (I included my wife). You want unfiltered feedback (even if it stings). I developed 3 drafts before my 'Board' validated the accuracy.
3. The Essentials (apply constraint). If you’re drafting your User Manual as a document, limit it to 2 pages. Limiting the length requires discipline, and significantly increases the chances that it will be read and interpreted by teams and stakeholders. My suggestion is to include 7 sections:

• About “Me”
• How I work
• What I value
• What I don't have patience for
• How to best communicate with me
• How to help me
• What people can misunderstand about me

1. Be Authentic. Be honest, use your own voice, and avoid jargon. Carefully consider your style, including your quirks. Your User Manual should be an instrument for establishing or improving connections with your team and stakeholders. It should reflect who you are - as a person - not just how you lead. A powerful feature in several of the User Manuals I have reviewed is a disclosure to what you’re conscious of/working on to improve, as well as how you like to give and receive feedback.
2. Evolve It. We’re all a work-in-progress. As we evolve, our user manual should too. I recommend reflecting on and refining your User Manual (as appropriate) every 6-12 months.

A User Manual is a testament not a covenant.

It’s important to acknowledge that a User Manual is a testament not a covenant. You need to be able to adapt to others' styles, not just expect them to adapt to your own. What’s more important is that leaders are creating psychologically safe spaces for their teams to openly discuss how they perceive working together. I have found User Manuals to be a helpful reference or decoder ring for understanding and discussing expected and unexpected behaviours.

Next week, after completing a 6-month sabbatical, I am returning to corporate life in an exciting role leading a large, high-achieving team across Asia Pacific & Japan. As I approach the onboarding process, there’s a lot I need to learn about my new team, how they work, and the business, and my team and others will no doubt have many questions about me. I’m looking forward to sharing my User Manual as a way to help them ‘unpack’ the product that is me.

* I found a lot of inspiration in posts from Abby Falik and Peter Vowles; Atlassian has also put together some useful templates.