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Why are there so many bad bosses?

freakonomics.com

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Re: Why are there so many bad bosses?

#11

Post by pech0rin »

mcntsh wrote: post #8

Since I became an engineering manager myself, I find myself looking back with more sympathy to my past managers. Engineers are difficult people to manage.

This is absolute bullshit. After being an IC, a tech lead and an engineering manager I can tell you that the one thing is engineers mainly want to be left alone to do their jobs. The job as manager is to stop the pressure from everyone in the company demanding they do everything more quickly to meet some arbitrary bullshit deadline. This attitude infuriates me. Its weak managers who dont know what they are doing that end up blaming their subordinates. So sick of this attitude.

Re: Why are there so many bad bosses?

#12

Post by mcv »

The idea of management being the only road for advancement has always seemed extremely self-destructive to me. I recently quit my job as a senior developer at a company because they wouldn't even pay me one of the upper pay scales for developers, because a requirement for that was that I'd have to take some sort of organisational responsibility outside my team. The fact that I did a lot of organisation and steering inside my team, which was considered one of the best performing teams there, didn't matter.

My dad has also always refused managerial responsibilities, but he was very much appreciated at his company. He said he had nobody below him and only one person above him, and he made more money than his boss (until his boss was replaced and the new boss gave himself a raise so he made more). My dad did get responsibility for all sorts of projects, just not for the people on those projects. And he has always remained very hands-on, sometimes replacing an entire team on his own.

It's basically what I want, but a lot of companies are apparently structured too rigidly to allow this.

Re: Why are there so many bad bosses?

#13

Post by PretzelPirate »

pech0rin wrote: post #11
mcntsh wrote: post #8

Since I became an engineering manager myself, I find myself looking back with more sympathy to my past managers. Engineers are difficult people to manage.

This is absolute bullshit. After being an IC, a tech lead and an engineering manager I can tell you that the one thing is engineers mainly want to be left alone to do their jobs. The job as manager is to stop the pressure from everyone in the company demanding they do everything more quickly to meet some arbitrary bullshit deadline. This attitude infuriates me. Its weak managers who dont know what they are doing that…

> This is absolute bullshit.

I’ve managed teams where the devs just wanted to be left alone to build things and they were skilled enough to manage their own career growth, which made my job as a manager very easy.

I’ve also managed teams where, before I took over, the devs had consistently been lied to by the organization leadership, hadn’t been given the work that would grow their skills and confidence, and needed constant coaching and a platform to vent. This team didn’t want to “be left alone to do their job”. This was a very hard management job.

Your comment suggests that you’ve only experienced the first case of being a manager, which may be why you strongly disagree with the other comment.

Re: Why are there so many bad bosses?

#14

Post by mcv »

pech0rin wrote: post #11
mcntsh wrote: post #8

Since I became an engineering manager myself, I find myself looking back with more sympathy to my past managers. Engineers are difficult people to manage.

This is absolute bullshit. After being an IC, a tech lead and an engineering manager I can tell you that the one thing is engineers mainly want to be left alone to do their jobs. The job as manager is to stop the pressure from everyone in the company demanding they do everything more quickly to meet some arbitrary bullshit deadline. This attitude infuriates me. Its weak managers who dont know what they are doing that…

Well, that does make engineers difficult to manage. But more importantly, engineers don't need that much management. They need managers to take all the organisational stuff out of the way, and make the way clear for engineers to do their thing. Make sure they have access to the requirements, feedback from users, and whatever else the engineers say they need. Do check if things are running smoothly and in the right direction, but if something is broken, give the engineers the tools to fix it, because that's what they do.

Re: Why are there so many bad bosses?

#15

Post by mattbrewsbytes »

Its because all you hear are the negative stories. As an EM my job is to shield the team from BS, give them what they need to get work done, stay out of their way and not to complain to them either about the BS that is circulating.

To an employee, a good manager kinda makes it feel like everything would be fine with the manager not there. And a good team could probably operate without a manager for a while. Until it comes time to write reviews or do other HR related things like filtering resumes, etc.

Re: Why are there so many bad bosses?

#16

Post by mcv »

fargle wrote: post #2

think for a minute: great engineers - i mean really great engineers - how many do you know? it's pretty rare right? it's an awesome thing and a scarce resource. think about how many you can mention. if you've been around it's not zero or one (yes of course you), but a handful. in my case 20-30. i feel lucky to say that. now - how many great engineering managers have you come across? i mean really great, not just OK.…

The best engineering managers I've had trusted their engineers. I think that's the most important part, and that's the part that some managers are bad at.

So if you really want to promote an engineer to management, don't promote the engineers who knows everything and does everything, because they're going to micromanage everybody. Promote the engineer that asks a lot and listens a lot.

Re: Why are there so many bad bosses?

#17

Post by mcntsh »

pech0rin wrote: post #11
mcntsh wrote: post #8

Since I became an engineering manager myself, I find myself looking back with more sympathy to my past managers. Engineers are difficult people to manage.

This is absolute bullshit. After being an IC, a tech lead and an engineering manager I can tell you that the one thing is engineers mainly want to be left alone to do their jobs. The job as manager is to stop the pressure from everyone in the company demanding they do everything more quickly to meet some arbitrary bullshit deadline. This attitude infuriates me. Its weak managers who dont know what they are doing that…

> engineers mainly want to be left alone to do their jobs

Sounds like a happy path but what happens when things go wrong?

If all engineers needed to do their jobs was for someone to leave them alone and let them do what they wanted there wouldn't really be a need for managers.

Re: Why are there so many bad bosses?

#18

Post by rramadass »

PretzelPirate wrote: post #13
pech0rin wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is absolute bullshit. After being an IC, a tech lead and an engineering manager I can tell you that the one thing is engineers mainly want to be left alone to do their jobs. The job as manager is to stop the pressure from everyone in the company demanding they do everything more quickly to meet some arbitrary bullshit deadline. This attitude infuriates me. Its weak managers who dont know what they are doing that…

> This is absolute bullshit. I’ve managed teams where the devs just wanted to be left alone to build things and they were skilled enough to manage their own career growth, which made my job as a manager very easy. I’ve also managed teams where, before I took over, the devs had consistently been lied to by the organization leadership, hadn’t been given the work that would grow their skills and confidence, and needed c…

The comment he/she was replying to said;

>Engineers are difficult people to manage.

This is an atrocious blanket judgement if i ever saw one. And was quite rightly called out for it. I too have argued elsewhere that most Managers are only too eager to blame the Engineers when they themselves are clueless/incompetent.

All the negative tropes like a) Engineers are socially inept b) Engineers are difficult c) Engineers do not understand Business etc. etc. need to die. For too long has "Management" ascribed to themselves all the virtues/wisdom of Business and treated "Engineering" as "Simple Workers" who need to be "Managed".

Re: Why are there so many bad bosses?

#20

Post by mcntsh »

rramadass wrote: post #18
PretzelPirate wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is absolute bullshit. I’ve managed teams where the devs just wanted to be left alone to build things and they were skilled enough to manage their own career growth, which made my job as a manager very easy. I’ve also managed teams where, before I took over, the devs had consistently been lied to by the organization leadership, hadn’t been given the work that would grow their skills and confidence, and needed c…

The comment he/she was replying to said; >Engineers are difficult people to manage. This is an atrocious blanket judgement if i ever saw one. And was quite rightly called out for it. I too have argued elsewhere that most Managers are only too eager to blame the Engineers when they themselves are clueless/incompetent. All the negative tropes like a) Engineers are socially inept b) Engineers are difficult c) Engineers…

Maybe I should have clarified. Engineers are difficult to manage (in my experience) because they're smart and have leverage in their role; it's not a simple manager -> worker-bee relationship. It's nothing negative.
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