I've been gradually sliding a supervisory role in my job (mainly by dint of everyone else with similar levels of seniority not being interested) and it's been a bit of a challenge because I'm an academic and a research nerd and not a manager. My supervisees are all good folks but they haven't been getting important parts of their jobs done and it's negatively impacting the org. I need to learn how to get them finish their crap but the descriptions of most management books stick to my skin in a way that feels hard to wash off. Does anyone know of good books/etc that won't make me talk like an MBA program replaced my soul with foam packing peanuts?
Edit: Thanks for all the really thoughtful responses, it's a huge help.
huh... commenting to see if anybody has any useful suggestions.
Best I can think of is an Army manual, FM 22-100 (which will probably require you to do some pretty heavy reading between the lines if you can manage to look past all the US Army stuff), chapters 4, 5, 6 and appendices A and B are sections with stuff that might be more general purpose even though the text frames everything around combat.
Link
FM 22-100
FM 6-22 (which I've never looked at but its supposed to have replaced the 22-100)