21–30 of 70 posts
A good resource for team meetings / 1:1s / etc: https://pipdecks.com
How about just listening to your "direct reports" (vomit), and having that inform your "leadership"? Stop being a robot which is how this guide makes it sound. Be human. You'll get so much more out of people than by aping some management how-to.
Some of the worst managers I have had have been hired or promoted into the role, whereas the better ones were pushed toward that by the people that they would soon lead. The world is being taken over by bad managers, don't be one of them. Listen first.
Edit: The individual writing this guide appears to have only had barely two years in a hard 'management' role, according to their LinkedIn. How can they possibly be qualified to give advice on a subject that takes years and years and years of developing and refining soft skills, let alone consulting on the particulars of leading people in that time? Might as well run for President. What arrogance thinking they can go into an organization and infect it with the Tech-leadership-style-du-jour and think they've done some good.
I wouldn’t put too much weight in these terms as form of identity.
I find "engineer to manager" guides are fundamentally not possible to write. I've been a manager of a team 3-4 times now and each experience was entirely different from the previous. But this post makes the biggest mistake, something I have struggled with in every management role: focusing on managing down. Managing down isn't actually that hard to get the hang of if you have strong technical skills and reasonable co…
I find "engineer to manager" guides are fundamentally not possible to write. I've been a manager of a team 3-4 times now and each experience was entirely different from the previous. But this post makes the biggest mistake, something I have struggled with in every management role: focusing on managing down. Managing down isn't actually that hard to get the hang of if you have strong technical skills and reasonable co…
So fundamentally gross that this is true.
I find "engineer to manager" guides are fundamentally not possible to write. I've been a manager of a team 3-4 times now and each experience was entirely different from the previous. But this post makes the biggest mistake, something I have struggled with in every management role: focusing on managing down. Managing down isn't actually that hard to get the hang of if you have strong technical skills and reasonable co…
> the best managers care primarily about politics and growing their personal stake in the organization So fundamentally gross that this is true.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 skill…
> The good managers I work with (and in my role I work with many) are definitely leaders in the traditional sense. Good managers are leaders, but this is far from universal. Most orgs have no shortage of managers who used be good individual contributors, and who were pushed into the management track due to seniority when the previous manager left, or who wanted the pay bump, but have no real leadership ability and ha…
A good organisation will be good at offering opportunity to the right people and giving them the tools they need. I agree that a good org is rarer than it should be, which is probably the source of much cynicism.
I find "engineer to manager" guides are fundamentally not possible to write. I've been a manager of a team 3-4 times now and each experience was entirely different from the previous. But this post makes the biggest mistake, something I have struggled with in every management role: focusing on managing down. Managing down isn't actually that hard to get the hang of if you have strong technical skills and reasonable co…
This is fine, and expected of senior management.
> I've found that the more clueless they are the better (just don't point that out).
This is toxic. Management at the senior level of these organisations has been completely detached from the activities on the ground.
A healthy functional organisation should have senior managers that understand the complete stack of layers, but especially at the level where the value is being generated they need to fully understand.
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 skill…