Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
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Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
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Re: Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
#2In my experience if your employees (me) show these signs we don't think you suck we know you suck.
Why don't we keep you in the loop? Well, you're not technically competent enough to understand the problem so I go straight to the devs on whatever issue I'm dealing with, explaining it to you is a waste of my time. This also leads into why we ignore you; you don't understand the issue, you can't fix it, you're effectively useless except for marking out schedules and having slightly higher authority than I do.
To be honest I don't understand why this is on HN. Since when did these simple, short, and obvious posts become amazing and worth reading?
Your employees probably think you suck as a manager because you do.
Re: Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
#3An analogy I try to keep in mind is that often as a manager you are in charge of manning the rudder and steering the ship in the right direction. Typically, you get a great seat on the boat and the laborious job of motility is left to someone else. Without a team of people dipping their oars into the water, though, you're just adrift.
Managers often lose sight that their job should be the least selfish role in the organization and that their job is really determined by the success or failure of those they manage. Your job is to facilitate your employees, not handle them. Your job is to nurture their talents and help them with their faults. The greatest success a manager can have is helping someone live up to their potential.
Re: Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
#4In my experience if your employees (me) show these signs we don't think you suck we know you suck. Why don't we keep you in the loop? Well, you're not technically competent enough to understand the problem so I go straight to the devs on whatever issue I'm dealing with, explaining it to you is a waste of my time. This also leads into why we ignore you; you don't understand the issue, you can't fix it, you're effectiv…
> To be honest I don't understand why this is on HN. Since when did these simple, short, and obvious posts become amazing and worth reading?
I've only been reading HN for a short while, but my impression thus far is that the people just sort of throw up a post for everything they run across that seems even slightly interesting, and, well, see what sticks... :]
I read HN via the RSS feed, and it's way ahead of everything else I read in terms of article-count.
[This is in contrast with sites like, e.g., slashdot—however horrible its editors are (and it's true, they are), it does have editors...]
Re: Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
#5In my experience if your employees (me) show these signs we don't think you suck we know you suck. Why don't we keep you in the loop? Well, you're not technically competent enough to understand the problem so I go straight to the devs on whatever issue I'm dealing with, explaining it to you is a waste of my time. This also leads into why we ignore you; you don't understand the issue, you can't fix it, you're effectiv…
This stuff may not be so obvious to a newly appointed manager who does suck. Remember the Dunning-Kruger effect and all that. Mind you, the article does feel light and could probably be done much better. But what seems obvious can very much depend on the person, and people can be incredibly oblivious to what others think of them (I have to admit that I've been there myself).
Re: Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
#6more importantly, how do you get your sucky manager to read that article without being too obvious?
Re: Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
#7An analogy I try to keep in mind is that often as a manager you are in charge of manning the rudder and steering the ship in the right direction. Typically, you get a great seat on the boat and the laborious job of motility is left to someone else. Without a team of people dipping their oars into the water, though, you're just adrift. Managers often lose sight that their job should be the least selfish role in the or…
According to the article, your job as a manager should be to interrupt them with one-on-one meetings where they teach you what you should already know and then discipline them for not being back in the office at 1:00 PM exactly.
Re: Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
#8Missing from the list: they quit and go elsewhere.
Re: Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
#9This reads like satire - it's a list of instructions for incompetent managers to preserve power.
Did hn just get trolled?
Re: Signs Your Employees Think You Suck as a Manager
#10Please don't believe this piece of useless blog spam. All of its advice should be taken with a large helping of salt.
1. If your team pays more attention to your presence than the work they are doing, there is a problem. You need to be able to get people's attention, but they shouldn't pay attention to whether you are in their peripheral vision.
2. There is a short path from worrying about whether you are "in the loop" to micromanaging. A micromanager may feel that they are doing lots of stuff and contributing value (because hey, that effort has to be worth something) but they are wrong.
3. A manager who is more concerned with the presentation of employees than what they are actually doing has the wrong priorities. At least if you're managing people in IT.