Learning to be managed

Yes, I have had managers that I consider to be good. But my definition of good is closer to "the person responsible for hiring and firing me, but otherwise leaves me alone" than the definition provided in the OP.

I have had managers who match the definition of good provided. It's clear these guys had read too many books and listened to too much Tony Robins. Being a dummy for their management-fu is draining, and every interaction gives NPC vibes.

The former got literally 10x more out of me than the later.

There is this bad meme going around that because managers are often technically incompetent, they must make up for it in some other way. There's no law of nature that says that must be the case. You can be lacking in many skills, and slip through the hiring process and into a manager role.

> The median senior is just as poor at giving feedback as the median manager

I didn't say feedback, I said advice. The advice I'm looking for might be how to understand a technology or technique, or how to negotiate a raise. Why would I seek either from someone technically incompetent who has to negotiate against me?

> There is this bad meme going around that because managers are often technically incompetent, they must make up for it in some other way. There's no law of nature that says that must be the case. You can be lacking in many skills, and slip through the hiring process and into a manager role.

I'm not sure why you are so focused on people who are clearly terrible. If they're technically incompetent, managerially incompetent and "slipping through" the hiring process they are obviously not good.

My managers have all been technically competent and brought enormous amounts of value to their teams. Providing structure, facilitating the creation of team processes and rituals, correctly dosing chaos and scope for each team member, shielding the team's focus, etc. They also all encouraged me to look around for other jobs and see what I am worth.

[0] https://techcrunch.com/2012/07/24/you-havent-seen-greatness/

The other method is to quit, if you are actually better than your level but your company fails to acknowledge it for whatever reason.

I would not know it from the way you talk!

> I'm more concerned with the average case because that reflects how an organization should be structured

Average in an org is very different from population average. The average professional is bad at their job. The average employee in a company can be pretty good.

My perception is that maybe only 20% of people are somewhat competent at their job, and maybe only 1-5% are very competent. Assuming managers are default bad is correct, but also useless because people in every role are default bad.

If you are competent and you care, the solution is to find a company which values that.

Problems that companies in the bottom 80% deal and the associated problems they deal with are utterly uninteresting, because it's like talking about how water is wet.

Yes, hiring people who are incompetent creates issues. Especially in managerial roles. Yes, hiring good people is difficult and creates another problem for the org. Most companies never get past dealing with these problems and they don't really give a shit about them, which is why it's so boring to discuss.

For an individual, the first step towards having a better manager is joining a better company. After you've done that is when the conversation becomes more interesting, because even at better companies not all managers are good or great.

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To me this whole thing very much sounds like the situation described in this article:

"Over just the past two weeks alone, I have talked with several people at different pure feature team companies that have told me, in so many words, that the empowered product teams I describe sound like some mythical and utopian world, which can’t possibly exist in reality.

Yet in these same two weeks, I’ve also spoken to people at strong product companies working in empowered product teams, that have asked me why in the world I would spend so much energy talking about these feature team companies, that they have never seen, and can’t imagine why anyone would want to run their company that way, and further, why anyone would want to work there? When I tell them that not only do they exist, they’re clearly the majority, they think I’m exaggerating."

https://www.svpg.com/best-vs-rest/

Good managers understand what the shape of each level looks like, and companies that care calibrate levelling across orgs. Your manager advocating for a report who does not meet the bar doesn't work because it requires approval from more than just your manager.

In saying that, I think there is always going to be some title inflation and some level of playing the system. But I have found that people at higher levels do tend to be more competent and embody more behaviours associated with that level, though levels can get fuzzy above senior.

[0] https://commoncog.com/seeing-expertise-milestone-worth-aimin...