Your top career growth reads of 2024

Jumpstart 2025 and level up now

Ethan & Jason here—we hope you had a spectacular holiday. Welcome to this week’s *free article* of Level Up: Your source for executive insights, high performance habits, and specific career growth actions.

Upcoming events:

1. (Jan 9) Live Executive Coaching with Ethan Evans—Client is a VP of Product Management

2. (Jan 29) Level Up Career Talks: Driving a Culture of Innovation

Both events and the video recordings are exclusive to newsletter paid subscribers. Checkout our new referral program where you can win a 3-month comp of our newsletter.

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A recap of some of your most popular reads in 2024, categorized by career growth.

I want to become a bar raising executive

1. 3 Elements of Executive Leadership

2. 4 Behaviors of Top CEOs

3. Career from Engineer to CEO & EVP with Ethan Evans & Ameesh Paleja

4. Dissecting Amazon Leadership Principles (LPs) for Amazonians & Non-Amazonians: Chat with David Anderson (Former Amazon GM & Tech Director, now Author of the Scarlet Ink Newsletter)

5. Leading a High-Performing Org & Cross-Functional Acumen with Omar Halabieh (Amazon Tech Director)

6. Executives are Measured by Results: Here’s how to get them

I want to get promoted

1. Ensuring a Great Performance Review

2. Make the case for your promotion: Promotion document framework

3. 4 Ways to Get Promoted Beyond Senior Manager

4. Handling 4 Challenges of High performance and Promotion

5. "Attitude matters" - Amazon VP

I want to manage up more effectively

1. What Your Manager Won't Tell You: The Art of Managing Up with Wes Kao (Cofounder of Maven & altMBA)

2. Manage Up to Executives: A guide for Senior Managers

3. Handling demanding leaders

4. Up-Down-Up Directions of Management

5. How to Influence Without Authority with Irina Stanescu (Eng Leader & Coach; ex-Google, ex-Uber)

I want to be a better manager

1. The Problem with Your Feedback Strategy — and How to Fix It Today!

2. Why managers fail: Harvard study identifies 4 main risk factors

3. How to be a People-First Leader

4. When top performers clash: Harvard study on 4 types of team conflict

5. Star Trek Made Me a Bad Leader (and Then a Good One)

I want to develop more executive presence

1. Up Your Game to Influence Senior Leaders with Ethan Evans & Sue Bethanis

2. Executive Presence: How to get "it"

I want to be more productive & high performant

1. Relentless Self-Improvement: 4 ways to be exceptional

2. Traits of top performers: 3 ways to be High Agency

3. Visualize your success: 5-minute exercise for "corporate athletes"

4. Do your hardest task first thing in the morning

5. High performance through daily action: 40+ actions for career success

6. Be a High-Impact Employee

I want to successfully network & build relationships

1. Network to maximize your life

2. Be a High-Value Connector & Networker: Chat with Andrew Yeung (Founder & Investor; ex-Google; ex-Meta)

I want to land a leadership role at a rocketship startup

1. What a Series B Co-Founder looks for in their Leadership Team with Dee Murthy (Co-Founder, Ghost)

I want to get hired

1. The Most Efficient Way to Land a Better Job at One of the World's Top Tech Companies

2. Insights from the Hiring Trenches: How Hiring Decisions are Really Made Today

A few of Ethan’s popular phrases

1. “Be bright, be quick, be gone.”

2. “Results are the currency of credibility.”

3. “If you want to be trusted, be clear and reliable.”

4. “Better to lose big and switch companies than to stay stuck in the middle.”

5. "Disagreements are more easily resolved when we treat those who oppose us as people to be persuaded, not as enemies to be vilified."

Reading (or listening on Audible) is your best secret tool for growing your career. While no one book will instantly transform your career, the weight of continual investment in yourself will make all the difference over the arc of a career. There are many great books available. Here is a list of the books Ethan has found to be the most valuable in his career.

Most popular Level Up Career Talk

Executive 1:1s Using Them Well

In this 64 minute Career Talk, Ethan explains the Amazon way, executive expectations, executive 1:1s, how to use (and avoid ruining) a skip level 1:1, what a good "regular" 1:1 looks like, the manager's perspective, and answered audience Q&A (newsletter paid subscribers were invited to join this talk and ask questions live).

Note: Career Talk classes are topic-specific presentations by Ethan. While these on-demand classes are available individually for purchase ($59 each)—all are free to paid newsletter subscribers ($354 value).

It was great getting to know more of our community members

Level Up Community Meetup in Seattle—read more here

Level Up Community Moderators “Get to know each other” event—read more here

End the year strong and get prepared now to make 2025 even better.

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• "I was recommended this substack by leader in my org. I read content here and felt this will be useful to my career growth. Especially as I look to take a step up from Senior Manager to Executive, I felt this content will help learn critical skills I am missing and I will need."

• "Ethan is a great leader and have great insights to grow from a Manager to executive and to navigate the complex realms of leadership."

• "Ethan, I am so grateful for the knowledge you share for those of us ICs navigating our career paths in big tech. Good managers and great leadership is a thing of the past and seeking out coaching, skills and tooling to get to the next level has been dependent on resources like what you provide. Keep being a leader and supporting our growth. You have my vote - paid subscribed! 🤜💥🤛"

• "I have looked up to you as an amazing leader, since we overlapped in Amazon Appstore. Your commitment to spreading knowledge and sharing your experience is something I want to support and learn from!"

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Connect With Ethan & Jason

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