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From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

humansinsystems.com

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Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#4
I find it funny that management started referring to themselves as leadership in the recent decades. Maybe some are, but most are your run of the mil administrators that carry out whatever upper management says. Hardly leadership.

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#5

I find it funny that management started referring to themselves as leadership in the recent decades. Maybe some are, but most are your run of the mil administrators that carry out whatever upper management says. Hardly leadership.

It reminds me of dictatorships referring to their officials as "revolutionaries."

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#6

I find it funny that management started referring to themselves as leadership in the recent decades. Maybe some are, but most are your run of the mil administrators that carry out whatever upper management says. Hardly leadership.

Leading us right over the parapet into the machine gun fire.

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#8

I find it funny that management started referring to themselves as leadership in the recent decades. Maybe some are, but most are your run of the mil administrators that carry out whatever upper management says. Hardly leadership.

First a caveat - I’m not a manager. I am at the top of the tech tree in a large org, which carries with it “leadership responsibilities”. I’ve also worn many hats over the years in various employment, so I know a thing or two about management.

I think you are generally wrong. Yes, ‘manager’ carries with it a certain amount of administrative and organisational responsibilities, not to mention the important ‘soft skills’ with conflict resolution and the like. But to deny or minimise the value of providing leadership is to miss the forest for the trees. The good managers I work with (and in my role I work with many) are definitely leaders in the traditional sense. They are the cool, rational, respected hands that provide guidance, break ties in debates and help drive the team/s forward. They are required to think strategically at times, and are certainly invaluable tactically.

We are all accountable to someone, all the way up to the CEO (who is accountable to the board). To diminish the role and contribution of managers at the bottom of the management stack is to be wilfully ignorant of the value they are providing.

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#9
post #7

It is very sad to see that in many companies, great engineers are forced to take on management roles to keep progressing in their careers. It seems to be the only path forward in many big companies.

It's so sad to see great engineers limit themselves and refuse to take on large projects because they think that they can't do better.

Re: From engineer to manager: A practical guide to your first months in leadership

#10
post #3

Good suggestions, but you should also have some formal training on how to manage people on that list - every employer should offer it, and if they don't that's an _enormous_ flag.

I agree. Formal training and a manager program should happen before you get promoted. After promotion, 1:1 meetings with upper C-Level executives and/or manager tandems should exist.
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