🤝 WHEN WE'RE IN CHARGE 🤝 will be out on May 13th
Get all the details + a sneak preview of the table of contents!
Earlier this week, I announced that the book I’ve been working on for the last 18 months is now finally, seriously, truly available for pre-order.
When We’re in Charge: The Next Generation’s Guide to Leadership
Preorder it:
Here’s the official marketing copy for the book, that I (obviously) think does a pretty good job summing it up
A first-of-its-kind practical manual for millennials and Gen Zers taking on positions of power, from Amanda Litman, cofounder of Run for Something.
“A refreshingly candid, delightfully irreverent guide to leadership for the next generation. Amanda Litman busts some major myths about how to succeed at the helm. Get ready to rethink some of your basic assumptions about authenticity, productivity, and professionalism.” —Adam Grant, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Hidden Potential and Think Again, and host of the podcast Re:Thinking
Most leadership books treat millennials and Gen Z like nuisances to manage around, focusing on how leaders from older generations can fit young people into their existing corporate cultures.
Not this one. When We’re In Charge is a no-bullshit guide for the next generation of leaders on how to show up differently, break the cycle of bad boomer leadership, and navigate the changing demands of those in power and the evolving expectations people have of their workplace.
Based on author Amanda Litman’s experience as a founder and executive (and mom of two who’s trying desperately to have a life outside of work), and informed by conversations with more than 100 next-gen leaders across politics, business, media, tech, education, and more, this book is a vital resource for new leaders trying to figure out how to get stuff done without making your team or yourself miserable.
When We’re in Charge offers solutions for sticky challenges like how to be yourself without giving your full self to your role; how to think about social media when your team sees what you post; and how to set up guardrails for work-life balance.Litman also offers arguments on why a four-day work week is the future; why transparency is a powerful tool that can do real damage if not wielded with intention; and why it matters for you, the boss, to both provide and take family leave.
A necessary read for all who occupy or aspire to leadership roles, When We’re in Charge is a vision for a future where leaders at work, in communities, and across the country are compassionate, genuine, and effective.
I’ve gotten a few questions about the book that I wanted to answer, so consider this a FAQ — if you have other questions, leave ‘em in the comments.
Q: When did you write this? Don’t you have a full time job and also didn’t you just have a baby?
Some backstory! I came up with the idea for this book in the summer of 2023, as part of my time as a Dial Fellow with Emerson Collective. With some feedback from my incredible agent, Stephanie Delman at Trellis Literary Agency, I wrote the 60-ish page proposal over the course of about six weeks at night after our daughter went to bed. Stephanie sold the book on my daughter’s first birthday in November — fortuitous, since the process of writing the proposal helped shake me out of my postpartum fog.
Run for Something has a four-day work week (which I talk about in the book and make the case that everyone should consider!) so I spent nearly every Friday in 2024 doing hundreds of hours of interviews, then writing draft after draft to figure out what I had to say. My evenings of writing were mostly shot (because pregnancy meant I was going to bed at 8:30) but I found a way to get it done.
In July and August, especially during the heatwave in NYC and when I was 6-8 months pregnant, I often spent at least one weekend morning at home working on the book from while my heroic husband took the toddler out.
Ultimately, I finished the final draft just a few weeks before the baby was born in September. (Nothing like a hard deadline of childbirth!)
I did copy-edits and what I called the “postpartum/post-election review” while I was on maternity leave in December. The book just went to the printer last week.
Q: Is there going to be an audiobook?
Yes! There will be a hardcover, an audio book, and an e-book. If the book sells enough, maybe there will also one day be a paperback! (I hope so!)
Q: Why do you want me to pre-order it when I could just wait to buy it in May?
Pre-orders are huge for authors. A quick explainer…
Pre-orders send a signal to the publisher, to booksellers, to the all-powerful algorithms, and to other insiders that there is a demand for the book. That’s good! The more people want it, the more all of the above will promote it, which feels a little backwards, but is what it is.
More practically: Best-seller lists like those printed by USA Today or the New York Times are shaped by book sales over the course of a week.
Every single pre-order counts as part of “week one sales” — even if the order is placed 11 weeks before the book comes out.
I know hitting a best seller list is a mostly ludicrous goal and does not reflect the value of me as a person or the book as a project, and there is a lot of other context that goes into those lists (for example: the number of books you need to sell to hit a list varies depending on what other books are on sale that week, where the books are purchased, etc). So I’m not basing my self-worth on it in any way.
But I will say: I think it’d be cool as hell for a book that advocates for and lays out a plan for compassionate and inclusive leadership to become a best-seller in this particular moment. 😈
Q: Is this a political leadership book? It is it a future of work book?
Nope to both! It’s only barely about politics. I intentionally interviewed so many people from outside politics in order to expand my understanding of what next-gen leadership looks like across a variety of sectors.
It’s got a lot about work in it, but it’s not just about work, either. It’s about how to model a new way of wielding power that could transform our teams, our communities, and our relationships to work, rest, and purpose.
(Said differently: It’s about why you shouldn’t be a piece of shit to people you lead or manage, in any context.)
Q: Can you tell me about some of the chapters?
Happily. Along with an introduction and conclusion, here are the chapter titles…
How to Be Yourself (But Responsibly)
Redefining Professionalism
What Happens on the Internet Rarely Stays on the Internet
People Should be Their Real Selves, Not Their Full Selves
In Order to Work Better, You Need to Rest Better
Transparency: Can You Be Too Honest?
How We Survive: Finding Community and Joy
We Do Not Dream of Labor
I’ll be touching on some of these topics in emails to come over the next few months, both because I’m very interested in them and because I think you may be, too — but don’t worry. This newsletter won’t be all book promo all the time.
What do people who’ve read it think of the book?
Check out the blurbs! They make me cry!
Q: How could a book about authentic & compassionate leadership possibly make sense when we’re imminently living under fascism?
We are all currently living under the absolute worst iteration of asshole boomer leadership.
To counter that, anytime we can, we should aspire to make the spaces we control more human, more effective, and more compassionate. This book is a guide on exactly how to do that without losing your mind. I believe in it, I’m proud of it, and I think you’ll like it.
Thanks for asking good Qs. If you have thoughts on where I should be promoting this book over the months to come — podcasts, Substacks, YouTubers, etc, send ‘em to me. The great marketing & publicity teams at Zando & Crooked Media will help make it happen!
Some book recs besides the one I wrote!
The Meadowbrook Murders by Jessica Goodman — Amy’s best friend & roommate, Sarah (and her boyfriend) are murdered in their dorm room the first week of senior year at the fancy private boarding school in Connecticut — and turns out, Sarah may have been a bit of a liar. So Amy (& social outcast/school newspaper editor Liz) dig in to find out what happened and solve the mystery of the double murder. A twisty-turny-propulsive YA thriller with a satisfying conclusion. Jess’s books are always hits.
You Between the Lines by Katie Naymon — A former sorority girl turned MFA poet runs into her high school crush turned nemesis in the same program — one part enemies to lovers, one part tender romance. I struggled a tiny bit with how insecure/people-pleaser Leigh was, but I think she’s supposed to be kind of annoying. Very well-written and romantic!
Some other odds & ends to peruse:
One of my hotter takes is philosophically, I think it’s problematic for us to pressure companies to provide child care benefits because we have seen with health care how dangerous it is to tie existential benefits to employment and if corporations take on the work, it absolves government of the responsibility to act — but, I will admit: Since this government is unlikely to do a damn thing for families, companies should offer child care and try not to be shitty about it. [Vox]
“Data shows that millennials in the US and UK “are by far the least conservative 35-year-olds in recorded history." This makes us the first generation in modern American history that has not shifted rightward with age, the first generation to experience adulthood as an exercise in watching neoliberalism fail in real-time. And maybe that’s why, despite everything we’ve lost, we refuse to lose our belief that things can change for the better. If anything, we’ve radicalized. We were raised on hope and change. And unlike the generations before us, we never stopped believing that progress isn’t just possible, it’s necessary.” [Liz Plank: Millennials were the last generation to have it all.]
Fortesa Latifi asks if it’s okay to listen to podcasts while she hangs with her 9 month old all day. Fuck the experts: If it makes you a more sane mom, the answer is yes. [My AirPod and My Mom Guilt in The Cut]
Pre-ordered!
Congrats! I will pre-order once the economic blackout day is over :)