How do you succeed when you're promoted to manage other managers? The common belief is that it's 10x harder, but the truth is it requires a completely different playbook.

This new role demands a shift from direct action to indirect influence, from solving daily problems to coaching your managers, and from short-term tactics to long-term strategy and system design.The M2 podcast tackles the toughest leadership transitions — and this one is notorious, with a 60% failure rate for newly promoted directors.

Here we examine why the skills that made you a great frontline manager won't work at the next level, what new skills you must develop, and how to avoid the common pitfalls that cause so many to fail.

Key point - if you're a frontline manager who wants to get promoted, start acting like you're already at the next level by developing these skills now.

How do you best grow your subordinates? One approach is with a Player Lineup.

This is a short and simple document where you track the learning and growth needs of your subordinates, for use in your 1-1 coaching conversations AND when planning holistically for the growth of your team.

The TXL training toolbox contains many useful tools -- but we only include tools that repay you 10-to-1 in time and energy saved and performance improved.

Here we examine which managers should use the Player Lineup, when, and why -- and help you decide if it's right for you.

Key point - if you're taking over a new team, this tool can be incredibly valuable.

There's a science to managing managers. In fact, without that science, you will struggle needlessly to fully support your subordinate managers in becoming excellent leaders.

Jim Prinzing and Thomas Cox share their breakthrough understanding of what followers need in order to follow at their best, which paints a clear target for exactly what each leader needs to do, and learn, in order to lead with excellence.

We further develop the idea that true lean and learning organizations need this model as their prerequisite to the work of collaborative problem solving needed to create excellence at all levels of an organization.