The First-Time Manager Playbook: Lead with Confidence from Day One

Julie Jenson is a leadership coach, author, and speaker who has spent more than fifteen years helping new managers lead with confidence instead of guesswork. Her own promotion to team lead arrived, as it so often does, with a title, a spreadsheet of goals, and very little instruction, and the trial-and-error that followed taught her more than any manual—and convinced her that first-time leaders deserve better. She went on to lead teams across technology and professional services, from a fifteen-person software startup to a national operations company, and to build the management training programs those organizations never had.

She has coached hundreds of new team leads through their first ninety days, and her workshops on feedback, delegation, and difficult conversations have been delivered in offices, warehouses, and conference rooms across three countries. Her writing on practical management appears in corporate training curricula and industry newsletters, and her first book, *Stepping Up*, grew out of the questions her coaching clients asked most. Julie is known for plain-language advice that works on a Tuesday afternoon, not just in theory, and for the belief that management is a skill anyone can learn with the right habits. She lives in Austin, Texas, with her family, and she still meets every direct report she has ever had, one-on-one, at least once a year.