The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers • Hacker News Board

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#111

Post by sph » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 8:27 PM UTC

etempleton wrote: post #92

sph wrote: post #48

Reminds 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.

They would be terrible employees. Making mistakes and doubling down, too stupid to learn from them, and with the energy to follow any inane goose chase. Being stubborn is good only if you are right.

But they would make fantastic career politicians. You need a certain type of person to work hard to get yourself voted by telling whatever stories your voters care about, but also capable of believing your own lies and fighting for them till the bitter end.

I guess I'm too lazy to admire any of these personalities.

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#112

Post by doctor_eval » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 9:00 PM UTC

swagasaurus-rex wrote: post #86

farorm wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think modern software companies moves to remove roles like scrum masters, testers and analysts. My theory here is that e.g scrum masters wants to scrum, it’s their job. Much better to have the team take turn being the scrum master. They own the process and the pain.

The non technical scrum master fills a very important role for higher management: somebody to take blame and responsibility.

In my experience the role of non technical managers is to assign blame to the technical staff.

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#113

Post by kazen44 » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 9:08 PM UTC

karaterobot wrote: post #52

obblekk wrote: post #5

This is true but nuanced in my experience. Often the best managers look around, see other managers being incompetent and messing up people’s natural abilities, and want to fix the problem even if it requires them to become managers. 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. I make this dist…

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 compared to actually contributing to the actual core bussiness.

I would argue being responsible for a major operational part of the business is far more prestigious then being a manager.

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#114

Post by oldstrangers » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 9:18 PM UTC

I've gotten a lot of pushback (from two different companies) when I suggested openly that any PM should have an extensive if not intimate understanding of the projects they're managing. They should realistically be able to do the work they're delegating, because you routinely need that level of understanding if the ones you're managing expect to get useful information out of you. If the manager doesn't understand the project, it becomes a repetitive effort of "let me ask the client, I'll get back to you" and you end up wasting tremendous amounts of time.

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#115

Post by gtaylor » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 9:26 PM UTC

ajmurmann wrote: post #59

obblekk wrote: post #5

This is true but nuanced in my experience. Often the best managers look around, see other managers being incompetent and messing up people’s natural abilities, and want to fix the problem even if it requires them to become managers. 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. I make this dist…

There is how you become a manager as you call out, but what happens after? How to stay an excellent IC as you spend more time in management and become a manager of managers? Picking up a small enhancement it big once in a while can be helpful for you, but also really interruptive for the team. You can code on your own time, but that only goes so far. What are strategies to keep these qualities a manager brings who al…

Why do you need to be a top IC after years managing managers? Some of the worst managers I've seen tried to cling too much to the technical details, which is smothering to the actual ICs.

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#116

Post by lambdatronics » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 9:28 PM UTC

FlyingAvatar wrote: post #108

__derek__ wrote: post #77

The article discusses senior-level management, but the comments here mostly focus on line-management. IMO, these are very different beasts. The former set overall strategy and need to be highly competent in their area of expertise. The latter focus on tactics and don't necessarily need to be competent in their team's area of focus as long as there are other mechanisms to provide their team with technical guidance, me…

What is the role of the manager, if they are not providing guidance and mentorship?

"Managers are hubs of communication, the better they communicate across these sphere boundaries, the more people they can communicate with, the more data they have, which, consequently leads to better decision making."

"As a manager, your job is that of a bullshit umbrella. You need to decide what crap your team needs to deal with and what crap can be ignored." https://randsinrepose.com/archives/managementese/

Leaders are shock-absorbers: https://www.edbatista.com/2022/10/leader-as-shock-absorber.h...

Leaders need to ensure alignment: "[Manager's] goals do not automatically become their employees' goals. On the contrary, much or most of a manager's job is to align these goals." http://yosefk.com/blog/people-can-read-their-managers-mind.h...

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#117

Post by thenerdhead » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 9:34 PM UTC

I feel like people interpret this wrong. Those who are great ICs and then assimilate into the traditional management role is not what Jobs was talking about. It is the spirit of an IC to push beyond the politics of the workplace and keep the philosophy of what makes a good IC alive.

In other words, politicians cannot practice philosophy and vice versa. They are incompatible or fail quickly when attempted.

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#118

Post by lambdatronics » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 9:37 PM UTC

TimPC wrote: post #13

A great IC with the right skill sets and inclinations to be a manager will be the best manager compared to a mediocre IC or someone out of field. Most ICs don’t have the right skill sets or inclinations for management and end up being a disaster of a manager.

Agreed. You can be a decent manager with mediocre tech skills provided you work really hard on the soft-skills part, but greatness only comes from excellence in both soft & 'hard' skills.

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#119

Post by ancientworldnow » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

lossolo wrote: post #109

gopalv wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Rarely is an awesome individual magically called upon to become a manager, particularly by poor managers who are already messing stuff up There's a passage in Platos' Republic which is illuminating about this particular circumstance. And I quote from [1]. """ And for this reason, I said, money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the…

I put your quote into ChatGPT: This passage is discussing the idea that good people do not want to hold public office because they do not want to be seen as hirelings who are only interested in payment, or as thieves who are secretly enriching themselves at the expense of the public. The author argues that good people are not ambitious and do not care about honor, so they must be forced to serve out of fear of punish…

Really excellent job illustrating chatgpt obliterates nuance, perfect for those unwilling to read beyond a paragraph and contemplate their lingering thoughts and questions.

Re: The best leaders are great individual contributors, not professional managers

#120

Post by thenerdhead » Sat, Dec 03, 2022, 9:41 PM UTC

gopalv wrote: post #84

obblekk wrote: post #5

This is true but nuanced in my experience. Often the best managers look around, see other managers being incompetent and messing up people’s natural abilities, and want to fix the problem even if it requires them to become managers. 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. I make this dist…

> Rarely is an awesome individual magically called upon to become a manager, particularly by poor managers who are already messing stuff up There's a passage in Platos' Republic which is illuminating about this particular circumstance. And I quote from [1]. """ And for this reason, I said, money and honour have no attraction for them; good men do not wish to be openly demanding payment for governing and so to get the…

Great comment. I was reading a book about Lincoln recently and this exact sense of being compelled was upon him. Him as a politician had him saying things he morally didn’t agree with. Once he won the game, he was able to instill the spirit of his philosophy and do something above society’s morals which we look back upon making him one of the best presidents to date.