Engineers are famously sceptical of management. So in its early years, Google asked a provocative question: what if managers don't actually matter?
Its people-analytics team set out to prove it. Project Oxygen analysed more than 10,000 data points from performance reviews and feedback surveys, along with hundreds of pages of interview notes.
The hypothesis failed. Teams with highly effective managers delivered better results, reported being happier and had lower turnover. Managers didn't just matter — they were one of the biggest levers the company had.
What great managers actually do
The more useful outcome was a description of what the best managers did differently. Google's current list has ten behaviours. A great manager:
- Is a good coach.
- Empowers the team and does not micromanage.
- Creates an inclusive team environment.
- Is productive and results-oriented.
- Is a good communicator — listens and shares information.
- Supports career development and discusses performance.
- Has a clear vision and strategy for the team.
- Has key technical skills to help advise the team.
- Collaborates across the company.
- Is a strong decision-maker.
Notice what sits at number one. Not technical brilliance. Not strategy. Coaching.
Behaviours, not personalities
What I love about this research is that every item on the list is a behaviour — something a manager does, repeatedly, that others can see. That makes it teachable, measurable and practisable. You don't need to be born a great manager. You need habits.
It also explains why so many leadership programmes disappoint. A two-day workshop on "being a coach" changes what people know. A weekly coaching conversation, run the same way every time, changes what they do.
Turning the list into rituals
- Coaching becomes a regular one-to-one structured around questions, not instructions.
- Communicating clearly becomes a predictable rhythm of sharing context and listening.
- Supporting career development becomes a conversation that happens on a calendar, not when someone hands in a resignation letter.
- Empowering, not micromanaging becomes an explicit agreement about which decisions are the team's to make.
And the most important habit of all: asking your team how you're doing — regularly, safely, and acting on what you hear.
Try the rituals: Upward Feedback Round · GROW Coaching Conversation · The Flipped 1:1
Sources: Following the data: The research behind great managers (Google re:Work) · Developing great managers at Google (Google re:Work). Material from Google re:Work is attributed to rework.withgoogle.com. Google is not affiliated with and does not endorse Rituals of Work.
