If only my manager back in 2009 followed that advice, I wouldn’t have my own company now and would still be working there. So maybe it’s a good thing she didn’t follow it :D

That leading part is especially hard, because it’s also easy to exaggerate the opposite way — being super soft, friendly etc. That will make the people you manage respect you a little bit less, or treat you with just a tiny bit less seriousness.

I still prefer to be “cool” at managing, understanding and “on the same level”, but some people take advantage of that to do lower quality work or even avoid working.

But as you said it’s all a matter of experience and the truth is that you can’t build great things completely alone. So it’s important to make the team feel like they’re special, motivating them every step of the way.

I’m still learning ‘management’, as my main goal for the first two years was to do the opposite to what my agency managers did just before I quit / got fired.

It worked so far.