I managed several people for few years. I knew the ends and outs of everything. I can tell them what to do and how to do it. I preferred to let them do it on their own and be there to help them when they fail. No one ever came to me for help without getting the help they needed. My team told me I was the best manager in the world. But I wasn't happy being a manager. It was boring. I required me checking on them often. I loved my work, it bothered me to watch people struggling to work in job they didn't like. I wanted to do the work. No one could do it as good as me. I didn't want to get bogged down with administrative tasks. On top of that, I didn't have the authority to make decisions even as a manager. I was basically a baby sitter for people that didn't need baby sitter. So I let go of my manager position and I am happy. I knew some people could do better but I can't make them do it. I want them to do it without me asking. Just as I do.
The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers
141–150 of 166 posts
Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers
#142Reminds me of my favourite quote by Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord: "I distinguish four types [of officers]. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qu…
Hardworking and stupid make great employees though. The problem is for doing such a great job as cogs in the machine they get promoted into positions of authority and then it is hard to fault them too much because at least they are hardworking.
Ugh, no way! Those people create messes that need to be cleaned up and don’t follow directions. The WORST
Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers
#143Reminds me of my favourite quote by Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord: "I distinguish four types [of officers]. There are clever, hardworking, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and hardworking; their place is the General Staff. The next ones are stupid and lazy; they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qu…
Hardworking and stupid make great employees though. The problem is for doing such a great job as cogs in the machine they get promoted into positions of authority and then it is hard to fault them too much because at least they are hardworking.
I think that here, lazy means "do as little as possible" and hardworking means "always do something", it doesn't mean people do or don't do as they are told.
Lazy stupid is fine because these people will execute the order to the letter and then slack off. If the order is clear, there is not much damage they can do. Hardworking stupid will try to do more and mess things up.
So if the order is to clean the toilets and the guy notices a leak.
The lazy stupid will clean the toilets
The hardworking stupid will clean the toilets and then attempts to fix the leak, mess things up and cause a flood
The hardworking clever will clean the toilets inspect the leak, try to do something, realize there is nothing he can do it and call the plumber
The lazy clever will take a look at the leak and call the plumber. He will not clean the toilets because he knows the repair will make a mess and it is therefore useless.
Lazy stupid was useless in that situation but didn't make things worse like hardworking stupid. Both clevers did the right thing, the difference is that hardworking wasted time but he executed the order, a reliable worker. Lazy may not be as reliable as a worker because he didn't execute the order, but he is the better decision maker.
Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers
#144MBAs (from insert pedigree university) believe they're smarter, better, and more capable with zero knowledge, wisdom, and/or experience, which inexorably leads to Theranos-like hubris.
People who are good generalists, able to switch contexts quickly, enthusiasm, interest in excellence, and have good social and customer service skills tend to be good managers. People who want to be managers and/or CEO by any means necessary typically shouldn't be allowed anywhere near non-IC work.
Another solution to pyramid-building: flat orgs - make managers and all other roles equal to others in terms of respect and influence, and differentiate managers as have responsibility areas rather than god-like status. Empire building doesn't solve any real problems while it creates others.
Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers
#145A fundamental problem at most organizations is that if you want more pay, then sooner or later you _must_ be promoted to, or apply for a leadership position.
If you want to keep on working in a 100% technical position, with little to no leadership duties, well, the options tend to be few...if any. So what can you do?
Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers
#146The thing about the IC -> management path that bothers me (and makes me skeptical of people who take it) is that programming and getting PRs merged is so god damn satisfying Going from this to just having meetings, training people, looking at dashboards... I can't imagine anyone doing this who genuinely likes programming. Even if the pay is better The people who are the most inspiring (and also the best at getting sh…
I miss it so much. But there’s a different satisfaction with seeing a big team happy, motivated and successful (and hopefully the team taking all the credit rather than you!).
I’m hoping I can go back and IC for a bit…
It’s a different reward that’s more subtle than coding.
Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers
#147I'm a counterpoint to this. Outstanding IC wanting to get into management for job security / ageism. Turned out to be a bad manager too focused on team and unable to effectively manage up and sideways. I'm now a consultant. Ageism is suddenly on my side in consulting. Coding until I die.
Im just curious here. Did your team love you or hate you? Were they happy with your focus on them besides your managing upwards and sideways inefficiencies?
The former but I'm not sure how much they knew about how I failed on the rest
Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers
#148Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Often the worst managers decide at a young age they’re good leaders, can lead people to do better than they would themselves, and decide they want to get into management. Pretty much this, but I want to refine the statement: "the worst managers are those who _want_ to manage."
Yup, the best manager I ever had (by far) did not want to be manager. But she was made manager when half our team was laid off (including our manager) and she was the most senior of the bunch left. She was amazing because she was good at telling higher up's "no" when they would try to take advantage of our team. The worst manager I ever had desperately wanted to become manager from a group of IC's and brown-nosed his…
Did that company have more systemic problems whereby that person wasn't identified as a complete c** and therefore inappropriate for any remotely leadership position?
The "eventually" in your last sentence makes me think all must not have been well elsewhere.
Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree with every word of this. I would also add that there's a third category, or maybe a 2.b: individual contributors in their 30s and 40s who look ahead to their future and say "well, I guess I better become a manager at some point" without having any particular aptitude or even an intrinsic desire. Many organizations have quite intelligently created parallel paths for contributors to keep advancing, which somewh…
I think this kind of thinking highly depends on what field you are in. My father worked in a technical role all his live in a automotive plant. (Eventually being technically responsible for overall design and implementation of all production lines). A lot of his former collegues moved into management during the early 2000's. Most got fired after the great recession because being a manager is considered a non skill co…
I have a startup of 3 growing up to 15, and I have this awesome
opportunity of hiring a career manager who’s sensible and everything. But he can’t code.
I’ve erred for a month, but I just told him no. I still wonder whether I’m in the “worst managers reject good managers” category or in the “you gotta belong to the people you manage” category. But being able to do is very high on my list.