“The Young Professional’s Guide To Managing” by Aaron McDaniel

I am grateful for the invitation from Career Press to write a review of “The Young Professional’s Guide To Managing”– By Aaron Mc Daniel.

Becoming a manager is a big transition for everyone no matter what their age. Most of us, who report to a manager, daydream, think and even plan what we would do if we were in charge. It looks so easy when the boss gives assignments and then sits back and waits for the positive results to roll in. Then one day you get your wish and you are promoted to manager. Once the euphoria of the promotion subsides a little you realize that now you are responsible for others, getting the work accomplished and meeting your boss’s and your company’s expectations. Where do you begin? What about all those nifty ideas to transform the working environment? Now you have the reins, how are you going to manage?

Aaron McDaniel rose through the management ranks, and was the youngest ever Regional Vice President at AT&T. In this age of instant experts and self proclaimed gurus there is a certain special authenticity about having had “boots on the ground”. “Been there, done that” adds creditability and assurance when giving career advice, especially when it is your career that hangs in the balance.

The “The Young Professional’s Guide To Managing” is a manager’s repository of ethics, rules, ideas, best practices and tips to be a successful leader. Organized in a very easy to read format, the plethora of information presented encourages one to study each chapter before moving to the next. Much like a classic textbook, the chapters build knowledge in a logical progression. My method was to underline what I considered essential as a reference for subsequent readings. It is my intention to keep my underlined copy in my top desk drawer as a quick reference.

Don’t be fooled by the title, ‘The Young Professional’s Guide To Managing”, the information contained in this book is timeless and will serve all managers and those working toward becoming managers equally well. In this book Aaron McDaniel discusses the different generations currently in the work force. There are still plenty of “Baby Boomers who were born between 1946 and 1964; Generation X born between 1965 and 1980 and Millennia’s, which includes the author, born between 1980 and 2000. The information contained in the “Guide” is applicable for managers of all ages and from the Mail Room to the Board Room.

“The Young Professional’s Guide To Managing” captures essence of management by detailing the traits, skills, and knowledge required to become a successful leader. In the Foreword, Jim Kouzes writes: [There] are just some fundamentals of leading and managing that are stable through time, even while the context of managing and leading changes dramatically. That is certainly the case with the lessons Aaron Mc Daniel teaches in this book. My guess is that if you read this book again 25 years from now, you’ll see that what he says here has stood the test of time…..

I agree whole heartily with Jim Kouzes’s observation. When I first became a manager, which was more than 25 years ago, before the computer and internet, cell phones, and PDAs the same basic principles of successful leading and managing were much the same as Aaron McDaniel presents in “The Young Professional’s Guide to Managing. I highly recommend this book to all who are currently leaders and managers, and to all those who aspire to a leadership and management roles.

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