This course contains the use of artificial intelligence.

The day your direct reports became managers, your job changed and nobody told you. The title stayed the same, so it is easy to assume the work did too.

It did not. You have stopped managing work and started managing judgement, and judgement cannot be checked the way a deliverable can.

What the second layer changes

You no longer see the thing being produced. You see a manager's account of it, filtered through what they think you want to hear. You cannot fix a problem directly without undermining the person whose problem it is, so every intervention costs something. A manager who is struggling hides it better than a specialist would, because admitting it feels like admitting they were promoted too early. And when you finally promote someone, their old role is empty and there was no plan for that.

The skills that made you a good manager of specialists are not sufficient here. Some of them are actively in the way.

How the course is built

Forty-two lessons in four parts. Developing other managers first, eight lessons: the ten competencies from the Gallup and Google research, how to teach strategy and performance management rather than doing it for someone, the six levels of delegation and how to spot micromanagement in another person's behaviour, situational leadership, and communication that survives being passed down a layer.

Then the full craft your managers need, twelve lessons of people management: building a team, developing experienced and junior people differently, one-to-ones, choosing a deputy, motivation, salary decisions, bonus schemes, retention, setting direction, OKR, teamwork, and control that does not become surveillance. You cannot coach what you have not systematised.

The three conversations, and the bench

Then the three instruments a second-line manager needs most and usually applies worst. Delegation with RACI and matched task difficulty, because delegating to a manager means delegating a decision rather than a task. The one-to-one, where the subject is their team rather than their to-do list. And feedback given to someone whose own job is giving feedback, which is a different conversation and a more defensive one.

And finally succession, six lessons. The 9-box grid, identifying which roles would actually hurt to lose, developing a bench through rotations and stretch projects, the transparency question nobody enjoys, and the metrics that tell you whether the bench is real. Because a manager with no successor cannot be promoted, and eventually that becomes their problem with you.

Who is teaching this

Mike, the number one HR instructor on Udemy. More than 1.6 million course enrolments, over 150,000 professionals trained, PHRi and SHRM-CP certified, HRCI representative in more than 10 countries. I built the people function of the unicorn Preply and worked at Wargaming, Alfa-Bank and iDeals. I have promoted strong specialists into management without preparing them and watched what it cost both of us.

What is included

• Lifetime access to all course materials

• Active instructor support in the Q&A section

• Udemy Certificate of Completion

• Practical assignments and real business cases

• A section with additional courses, tools and resources

Start with the uncomfortable question

For each manager reporting to you, write the name of the person who would take over if they left tomorrow. Blank lines are not a succession problem yet — they are the reason you cannot promote anyone. Enrol now and start the first lesson today.