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Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?

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Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?

#171

Post by dasil003 »

dominotw wrote: post #139
TimTheTinker wrote: post #48

I'll name the best manager I ever had, since she unexpectedly passed away nearly three years ago to our team's (and company's) great sadness. Margaret Thielemann was a QA manager for nearly 10 years at Esri (she previously headed up QA at PeopleSoft before its acquisition by Oracle), and I reported to her for all of those 10 years, during which I learned and mastered web development by scoping, designing, and buildin…

> She very effectively protected us from HR and whoever else wasn't on the team so we could focus on our work. on contrary, bad managers use this excuse that they are protecting you from politics to hold on to important pieces of information from the team so only he has the complete picture of what is going on. I am highly suspicious of managers who keep saying this.

This is ridiculous, if you want to be clued in to all the bullshit flying around then you should move into management because as a developer it will kill your productivity trying to keep up with and interpret it.

Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?

#172

Post by ryandrake »

nathantotten wrote: post #157
iagooar wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I ask myself is: why do corps allow to become places where shit is being thrown around, instead of productive work and cooperation.

You have to remember that giant corporations are actually many small teams trying to work on their own problems. So the “shit” to one team may very well be mission critical to another team. Part of the manager’s job is basically deciding when it makes sense for two teams to work together (I.e. let the “shit” through) and when it doesn’t make sense and shield the team so they can focus on their work.

And at smaller organizations “shit” can take on different forms. I’ve seen a lot of “executive indecision” shit. Where the CEO or some big shot leader wakes up every week with a totally different idea and he thinks the engineers should drop everything and start working on it right away. The best managers can talk him off the ledge and let their team focus without even seeing this chaos.

Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?

#173

Post by CamTin »

wepple wrote: post #170
CamTin wrote: post #154

Alternate wording: Why have you rationalized that it's OK for somebody to profit from your surplus labor while threatening you with homelessness and starvation?

I’m curious: this reads as if you think there’s a better model. How would that model work?

Directly, democratically provisioning (aka decommodifying) the essentials of life (healthcare, a home, food to eat, education) while letting markets continue to exist for everything else. Then we won't need to have stockholm symdrome and convince ourselves that our boss is the greatest. Instead, we can engage in truly free exchange if we want to, and nobody gets to threaten us with homelessness and destitution. In other words, if your boss sucks, you don't have to take it. If you're a fascist at heart and love worshiping authority anyway, you're free to do so.

Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?

#174

Post by sidlls »

JepZ wrote: post #98
TimTheTinker wrote: post #48

I'll name the best manager I ever had, since she unexpectedly passed away nearly three years ago to our team's (and company's) great sadness. Margaret Thielemann was a QA manager for nearly 10 years at Esri (she previously headed up QA at PeopleSoft before its acquisition by Oracle), and I reported to her for all of those 10 years, during which I learned and mastered web development by scoping, designing, and buildin…

Most of what you say are qualities I like managers to have too, but 'someone tried to ask us for help with someone else's project without asking her first--she was furious.' is a quality I do not value. I mean, protecting your people is one thing (an essential quality), but being furious because someone in need of help asked in the wrong order doesn't foster cooperation beyond the borders of the own team (causing sil…

I'm wrapping up my first year as a manager and I have to say this is really one of the most context dependent things I have to worry about. I can definitely see a QA manager being fierce about it. I have yet to work at an organization that actually valued the QA function, at least enough to give it resources necessary to do its job properly.

Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?

#175

Post by mxwsn »

gwbas1c wrote: post #155

Honestly, my favorite managers were horrible. I got along with them on a very friendly basis, but in hindsight, I had poor job satisfaction. The best managers aren't my friend. The three qualifications are, in order: 1: They shield me from the whims of upper management and the crisis of the day. 2: They give me autonomy to do my job as I understand the details better than they do. 3: (In their current role) They take…

Are the qualities you value in managers related to your experience of poor job satisfaction? Are you happier with managers that in hindsight aren't as good?

Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?

#177

Post by dominotw »

dasil003 wrote: post #171
dominotw wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> She very effectively protected us from HR and whoever else wasn't on the team so we could focus on our work. on contrary, bad managers use this excuse that they are protecting you from politics to hold on to important pieces of information from the team so only he has the complete picture of what is going on. I am highly suspicious of managers who keep saying this.

This is ridiculous, if you want to be clued in to all the bullshit flying around then you should move into management because as a developer it will kill your productivity trying to keep up with and interpret it.

> all the bullshit flying around

I didn't say that though, I said "important pieces of information" . You made least charitable interpretation of what I said and called it 'ridiculous'.

I am not saying all but i've seen managers use this excuse to justify withholding information to justify their usefulness to the project.

Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?

#178

Post by kirantikari »

I worked for an unlimited design company for my summer internship. This was my first instance of a job interaction with any company.

What amazed me was the founders spent most of their time teaching designing to all interns/designers in the company. Considering interns are temporary, and yet investing time in teaching interns was what made my experience so great.

Re: Ask HN: What made your favorite manager/supervisor/CEO so great?

#179

Post by bswitzer8 »

The former lead developer at the place I work now was my favorite manager. He was great and a valuable resource for learning from. Since his departure the environment hasn't been the same. He definitely was always able to ensure that when reviews were done that he was critical but also genuinely cared about the other developers.

What qualities make a good CEO/Manager/Supervisor?

1) Passions/genuine caring. If the person in charge doesn't love what they do, or genuinely care about you and the company then you're going to have a bad time.

2) Competency/Consistency - Being able to do you job, and do it well. A person in such a role is the Guidance (tm). Anyone can do a good job if they put in the time, they also must be consistently good (That's what makes them valuable).

3) Critical when it counts. You have to crack the whip every so often and tell people when something can be done better. Criticism is important to deal out when it is needed, but the right amount that is used for making sure that the other developer/designer/delegatee is growing in their skills/experiences.

That's my three C's for what makes a great overlord. My previous supervisor ticked all boxes.

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