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Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

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Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

#11

Post by seneca »

xmprt wrote: post #6
seneca wrote: post #4

Having a severely unperforming, and sometimes belligerent, employee that couldn't be fired because of HR reasons. His work was horrible, and his responses to feedback was to become hostile. Not only was he dead weight, he destroyed the team's morale and hurt their relationships with other teams. The team looked to me to solve the issue and couldn't understand why he wasn't being fired, and I couldn't tell them "I'm n…

What reason did HR give for you not being able to fire him? I think at least some members of the team would be understanding. Also, I'm not sure if you tried this, but I've heard in cases where you can't fire someone, you recommend them for internal transfer and give the other manager good reviews of them. It's a bit scummy but it's the most positive outcome for the team.

> What reason did HR give for you not being able to fire him?

I don't want to ignore the question, but it's a sensitive topic and I'm not sure bringing it up would add to the conversation.

> Also, I'm not sure if you tried this, but I've heard in cases where you can't fire someone, you recommend them for internal transfer and give the other manager good reviews of them.

Yes, I actually had a peer recommended this as well. In the end, I decided against it as I felt it was unethical. I didn't want to get rid of a problem by becoming one myself.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

#12

Post by neutronicus »

throwarayes wrote: post #3

Having an unstable teammate on a project I led. Long story short, they: (a) saw things in terms of them being persecuted, and took critique of their work or approach deeply personally (b) tended to see things as us vs them, and not a two-way street, where both sides bore responsibility. And that sometimes crappy things happen with no malace. (c) resented other's success at the company, and thought that the 'successfu…

Just so you know, there's a gendered pronoun at the end of point (d).

Since it looks like you were trying to avoid this, I figured I would let you know so you can excise it if you wish

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

#13

Post by juancn »

Accepting that I was seen as a leader. I've never wanted a leadership position, I just wanted to build cool shit. I'm good at it.

At some point in my career (I've been doing software for 22+ years professionally) people started taking me really seriously. I could no longer make certain jokes and I had to be careful about my opinions because they were taken (in many cases) as "the right thing to do".

So I got in all sorts of trouble, because I didn't want the leadership at the time. At some point I finally embraced it and actively started figuring out what kind of leader I should be.

After that point, it has gotten a lot easier. I even started enjoying it.

Leaders lead even when they don't intend to. So if you're one (willing or not), you should take the responsibility do your best to make the team thrive.

I think it as: Company > Team > Self in terms of goals, if I cannot accept that, I'll move on to a different gig.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

#14

Post by chucky_z »

I'm in it right now. I thought I've been doing a good job and suddenly I'm being attacked from all angles. I'm having someone help me, but it honestly even feels like they're attacking me. The hardest part is that it feels like i'm being forced to let go of my compassion and empathy for others in order to succeed.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

#15

Post by kwertyoowiyop »

xmprt wrote: post #6
seneca wrote: post #4

Having a severely unperforming, and sometimes belligerent, employee that couldn't be fired because of HR reasons. His work was horrible, and his responses to feedback was to become hostile. Not only was he dead weight, he destroyed the team's morale and hurt their relationships with other teams. The team looked to me to solve the issue and couldn't understand why he wasn't being fired, and I couldn't tell them "I'm n…

What reason did HR give for you not being able to fire him? I think at least some members of the team would be understanding. Also, I'm not sure if you tried this, but I've heard in cases where you can't fire someone, you recommend them for internal transfer and give the other manager good reviews of them. It's a bit scummy but it's the most positive outcome for the team.

AKA “pass the trash.” Even if execs & HR don’t preemptively catch such an attempt, don’t do it. You’ll wreck your own relationship with the receiving manager, and it will likely look bad for you as well. Do it only if you genuinely think the employee will do better on the other team, you have an honest and detailed conversation with the receiving manager, then that manager has an honest conversation with the employee about the specific issues & problems.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

#16

Post by tchalla »

People with a black or white binary thought process. “We either do it or we don’t”. There’s no room for options and implications. I have to constantly remind to move towards options and implications (with assumptions). Thus, shifting the conversation to a probabilistic decision making that includes on opportunity costs. In this scenario, there’s more than one hypotheses and there’s no dominating “winner take all” option.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

#17

Post by 29athrowaway »

throwarayes wrote: post #3

Having an unstable teammate on a project I led. Long story short, they: (a) saw things in terms of them being persecuted, and took critique of their work or approach deeply personally (b) tended to see things as us vs them, and not a two-way street, where both sides bore responsibility. And that sometimes crappy things happen with no malace. (c) resented other's success at the company, and thought that the 'successfu…

In the "Big five personality traits" model, you have:

1. Openness to experience (inventive/curious vs. consistent/cautious)

2. Conscientiousness (efficient/organized vs. extravagant/careless)

3. Extraversion (outgoing/energetic vs. solitary/reserved)

4. Agreeableness (friendly/compassionate vs. critical/rational)

5. Neuroticism (sensitive/nervous vs. resilient/confident)

Excessive neuroticism (aka emotional instability) can be very hard to deal with, at a personal level and at a professional level. But note that excessive confidence can be just as harmful to an organization as being emotionally unstable, and sometimes just as hard to deal with.

Then, psychological safety in an organization is also important. Honesty and disagreement should be seen as acceptable as long as they happen in a context of respect and in a constructive manner.

You have to ocassionally give developers some time and autonomy to do stuff they consider important. They want to do what they perceive is right, and while not every time you can let them do it, sometimes you have to listen to them, trust them and let them do it. It will not be a waste of time, believe me.

If you don't, you are at risk of them getting burned out. You do not want burned out developers, it's a waste of time for everyone.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

#19

Post by Spooky23 »

xmprt wrote: post #6
seneca wrote: post #4

Having a severely unperforming, and sometimes belligerent, employee that couldn't be fired because of HR reasons. His work was horrible, and his responses to feedback was to become hostile. Not only was he dead weight, he destroyed the team's morale and hurt their relationships with other teams. The team looked to me to solve the issue and couldn't understand why he wasn't being fired, and I couldn't tell them "I'm n…

What reason did HR give for you not being able to fire him? I think at least some members of the team would be understanding. Also, I'm not sure if you tried this, but I've heard in cases where you can't fire someone, you recommend them for internal transfer and give the other manager good reviews of them. It's a bit scummy but it's the most positive outcome for the team.

People who are good at being assholes can use HR to their advantage.

You can selectively “seed” your personal problems with EAP to establish documentation of stuff and use that to make termination difficult or delay. Some people will go so far as to make claims of alcoholism and parlay that. Gumming up the works is effective, as one HR screwup and the employee is good to go. Sometimes you can get promoted for being an asshole.

Re: Ask HN: What was the biggest leadership challenge of your career?

#20

Post by apozem »

ohazi wrote: post #9
uh_uh wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like quite the nightmare. Was the person at least technically competent in their role?

I think I understand why you phrased it like this, but using "at least" here might be read as implying that technical competence can excuse these issues. It can't. I can understand management being hesitant to fire someone technically competent, but this kind of disfunction can tank the productivity of an entire team of otherwise technically competent people, as OP alluded to at the end of their comment.

Completely agree!

Something I realized lately is if you don’t ha e soft skills, it literally makes you worse at coding.

I always knew you needed them to be a good employee, but it wasn’t until I worked with a “senior” without an ounce of social grace that I realized lacking soft skills makes you worse at writing good code.

The “senior” didn’t solve the application’s problems because they didn’t care to ask. They thought they knew everything. They didn’t spread their knowledge onto the rest of the team. Instead, they spent their time working on a half-baked idea no one asked for. They would get stuck on a problem and never ask for help, a junior mistake.

My hot take is you need some minimum of social skills (doesn’t have to be a lot!) to be “technically competent.”

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