Long Story Short
Most managers were never given a job description for the management part of the job, and that’s where most things quietly fall apart. Check out Nina Jacinto’s Manager Toolkit if you want to give your managers (or yourself) a real place to start.
Early in my career — like, embarrassingly early — I had two direct reports. I was 23, commuting 90 minutes each way from San Francisco to the South Bay (yes, really — the Northern Californian’s reading this will be aghast), buried in grant deadlines and partner relationships, all while trying to manage people… on the side. Emphasis on the trying.
One day I was carpooling with a colleague, Helia Collective member Rachel Kleban. Rachel is a genuine HR genius. I was struggling and I knew it, so I asked: What should I be doing differently?
She started listing out her best practices — good ones. Standard, solid, completely reasonable things managers should do. I listened… but I thought to myself: Yeah, I know all of these AND I don’t really want to do them.
Management is a distinct job. It deserves a job description.
In my head, they sounded like extra work. Hand-holding, busywork that was getting in the way of my actual job. (I am fully aware of how bad this sounds. Please keep reading.)
Eventually, I had to let one of my direct reports go. I was so buried in deadlines that I didn’t even go into the office that day to have the separation conversation in person. I just stayed home and kept working on proposals. I think about that person sometimes, and I feel pretty badly about that.
What I didn’t understand then, and what took me years to really, truly get, is that people management actually IS the job. Not the thing alongside the job, not an add-on, but THE job. It’s the opportunity to see folks, lift them up, and help align everyone toward wherever the work is going. That’s the gift and it’s what I’d signed up for. I just didn’t know it, because nobody told me.
Understanding what management actually means — what you’re really saying yes to when you take that role — should be non-negotiable, not something to stumble into. Clearly articulating the true job is the difference between a manager that thrives and one that flames out.
The person who was brave enough to write the FULL manager job description
Nina Jacinto and I worked together around 2009. We were both very young, very early in our careers, and both figuring out a lot more than we let on. I’ve watched her from afar ever since. When I recently saw a leveling chart she’d shared with a client, I was like: Nina! — and immediately reached out.
She found her way to people operations taking the scenic route: she started in fundraising (turns out, she didn’t love asking people for money), pivoted through grant management, contract management, risk management, and internal operations before landing in the work she was clearly meant to do. She’s spent the last decade leading People Operations in nonprofits and startups, including managing five layoffs in five years, which is the kind of experience that either breaks you or gives you very strong opinions. In Nina’s case: very strong opinions AND a deep, genuine commitment to doing hard things with integrity.
I admire her so much for all of this AND, the thing she does that I hadn’t heard anyone describe before — the thing that made me go, YES, CLARITY!!! — is this: Nina gives managers an actual job description for the management part of their work.
Because most managers never got one. Most got promoted because they were great individual contributors who said yes — whether for the title or for being a team player or because it was the only way to move “up” in the org — and were left to figure out how to manage. Usually, by doing it wrong for a while. (Sound familiar? Raising my hand.)
Nina’s whole approach starts with closing that gap.
The job description most managers never received — but every manager needs.
The Key Takeaway
We’ve all heard it: people don’t leave jobs, they leave managers.
And yet, how often do we actually set managers up to do the job well? Not their individual contributor’s job, but the management job. How often does someone get promoted into a role that involves leading, developing, and being accountable for others, but never receives any clarity on what that means?
Nina’s reframe: management is a distinct job. It deserves a job description.
When managers don’t know what their job actually is, they default to what they know — doing the work. When teams don’t know what to expect, they drift. When leaders don’t name the management piece explicitly, they end up with what looks like a performance problem that’s actually, almost always, a management problem.
The path forward isn’t more oversight or more accountability; it’s clarity that starts with giving the management role the definition it deserves. So that everyone who says yes, knows what they’re saying yes to.
Nina’s Template
If you’re a “just give me the tool” kind of person (aka Helia’s COO, Libby), we put together Nina’s Manager Toolkit to get you started.
If you’re a “tell me why this matters” kind of person (aka Founder Jess), read on! Here’s what we’re going to cover:
- Step 1: Name the job — be honest about everything that goes along with being a manager
- Step 2: Audit the basics — start with calendars and meeting cadences and the rest will follow
- Step 3: Give people direction — not just oversight
If you’re a “Tell me the magic behind each step that makes this work” kind of person (a Jess), read on for the good stuff…
Nina’s Approach
Step 1: Name the job
The most powerful thing Nina does when working with a struggling manager is also the simplest. She hands them a job description for the management part of their work.
Not a performance rubric, nor a list of competencies, but an actual job description that says: this is what you’re responsible for. Things like:
- Setting team vision and goals
- Building an exceptional team
- Managing the execution of individuals and the team
- Evaluating individual performance
- Mitigating risk
- Supporting team communication
- Coaching to grow the skills and capacity of the team
Almost always, these bullet points were not in the original job description (unless Nina wrote that description herself!).
“I hear this from so many managers that I’ve worked with,” Nina says. “I’ll ask, ‘How did you become a manager?’ And they say, ‘Well, I was a really strong individual contributor and then I got promoted and the promotion path was management.”
The problem? Nobody ever told them what the job actually was. “I didn’t know it was my job.” She hears it over and over.
She has found that once she names what the work is — once she gives them credit for all of the things they’re doing that they didn’t have a name for but were exhausting them — something opens up.
When they know what the job really is, they can finally move forward!
This isn’t about adding work. It’s about naming the work that’s already there, to both honor the effort of the manager and to ensure it stops falling through the cracks.
You are not trying to control your team, You are trying to empower them by offering guidance and clarity about how to achieve goals.
Step 2: Audit the basics
Before trying to fix culture, fix the calendar.
When Nina does an intake with a struggling manager, one of the first things she does is a meeting audit. “I’ll go on their calendar and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, where is your weekly one-on-one with your employee? How are you running your team meetings?'”
The diagnostics are revealing:
- Are one-on-ones happening? With some team members but not others.
- Are they driven by the manager or the direct report? It depends on the person.
- Are they getting skipped whenever things get busy? Guilty as charged.
“That tends to open up a lot,” she says. “They’ll be like, Oh, I don’t have meetings dedicated to management. You’re like, okay, well, let’s sort that out.”
It’s the same with performance conversations. Not in a gotcha way — just honest inquiry.
- How are you thinking about your direct report’s performance?
- When you think they’re doing a good job, are you telling them? How often?
- When they aren’t meeting the mark, what do you do?
These questions often surface the fact that managers aren’t just under-supported, but that they’re genuinely unaware of what the role expects.
People want direction. They want clarity. They want to know why their work matters. What they don’t want is to be an afterthought.
Step 3: Give people direction, not just oversight
Here’s the counterintuitive thing Nina sees again and again: the managers who are most worried about micromanaging are often doing the exact opposite.
“Most of the time I’ve noticed that the opposite is true,” she says. “People want direction. They want clarity. They want to know why their work matters. What they don’t want is to be an afterthought.”
The sweet spot isn’t less management. It’s better management. The kind that helps people feel seen, heard, and connected to something bigger. This is especially true for resource-constrained organizations where everyone is wearing multiple hats. People need someone actively helping them understand how their work connects to the mission and to each other.
“You are not trying to control your team,” Nina says. “You are trying to empower them by offering guidance and clarity about how to achieve goals.”
And here’s the part Nina says directly to managers who are struggling: it’s not your fault. You became a manager because you were good at something else, and you said yes to a promotion without a roadmap. That’s on the system, not on you. AND, it’s your responsibility now. Once you see it that way, a lot shifts. It’s amazing what a little acknowledgement can do.
What This Looks Like in Real Life
At Massdrop, Nina’s first VP of People role, she was working with a founding leadership team that would have described themselves as having pretty low EQ. When layoffs came, her job wasn’t just to manage the legal logistics, it was to help leadership understand why communication mattered, for their own goals. The fear for a startup isn’t usually about feelings, but will our workforce stall? Will we lose the culture we’ve built?
So she met them where they were. Weekly town halls. An anonymous question link, every week. An almost exhausting level of information until people finally said: ‘Okay, we get it, we’re ready to move on.’ Not because she forced it, but because she created enough space that people got their questions answered and felt seen through the change.
That’s management, done well. Not perfect and not without the hard moments, but with integrity, and a real understanding that how you treat people matters.
When to do this Yourself vs Bring Someone in
The good news: you can start today. Pull up Nina’s Manager JD, read it yourself, and share it with your managers as a conversation starter. A meeting audit is something any thoughtful leader can do, so look at your manager’s calendar and ask honest questions about what you see.
Where outside support makes sense:
- You have a manager who’s struggling but neither of you can quite pinpoint why
- You want to build a real management development program, not just hope good management trickles up
- You’re about to promote someone into their first management role and want to set them up right from day one
- You’re navigating a reorg, layoff, or significant change and want someone who knows how to bring people through it — not just the logistics, but the human side
- Your team is underperforming and you genuinely can’t tell if it’s a management problem, a clarity problem, or something else entirely
If You Want Help
Nina Jacinto is a people operations strategist with a decade of experience in nonprofits and startups. She works with organizations and leaders on manager development, reorgs, performance management, and the kind of change that actually sticks. Hard things done with integrity.
She’s a good fit if:
- You have a manager (or are a manager) who’s struggling and needs real support, not just more feedback
- You’re planning a restructure, layoff, or significant org change and want to do it in a not-terrible way
- You want to build management culture from the top down, not hope it trickles up
- You’ve promoted someone into a management role and realized they need more than a new job title
Connect with Nina!
Try it Yourself
- The Manager JD — A comprehensive job description for the management part of the role — covering everything from building a team and setting goals to managing performance and mitigating risk.
- Nina’s Leveling Matrix — A framework that shows how expectations shift across levels — useful for managers and team members alike.
- The Why Interview Guide — A structured interview template for finding people who’ll genuinely thrive at your organization — not just check the skills boxes.
Recommended reads:
- Ask a Manager by Alison Green — Nina’s been a reader for decades and consistently recommends this as a go-to resource
- Management in a Changing World — an excellent read on managing in social-impact organizations specifically
- Harvard Business Review’s Managing People section — a solid ongoing resource (subscription required)
Go deeper:
- The Management Center’s Management Training — consistently a brilliant starting point for developing managers
Questions to Sit With
- If I handed my managers a job description for the management part of their work right now, what would they say they’ve been unclear on?
- When someone on my team is underperforming, what’s the first place I look — their effort, or the clarity and support they’ve been given?
- Am I giving my team enough direction — or leaving them to figure out on their own how their work connects to the bigger picture?
- What would I find if I audited my managers’ calendars for dedicated management time?
- Is there someone on my team who took a management role because it was the promotion path — and has never quite said a full yes to what the job actually requires?
Not sure Nina‘s the right fit? Talk to Helia directly!
This article comes from a coffee chat with Nina in June 2025. These conversations form the heart of the Helia Library — because we’ve learned the most from doing and from talking with other doers willing to share their wisdom. We don’t need to start from blank pages or do everything alone.
About Nina
Nina Jacinto has spent a decade leading people operations in nonprofits and startups, and now provides strategic consulting to organizations and teams. After managing five layoffs in five years, she figured out how to help organizations and their leaders make changes without losing their humanity — and now helps others do hard things with integrity.
Nina started the Long Beach Crochet Club for “introverts who like hobbies” when she moved to the city, has attended members’ weddings, and earned 117 five-star reviews for creating a community where people actually want to show up. She still uses “cheers” as her email sign-off.
