[HN Gopher] Bad engineering managers think leadership is about p...
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       Bad engineering managers think leadership is about power
        
       Author : sidcool
       Score  : 16 points
       Date   : 2021-09-09 16:33 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (ewattwhere.substack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (ewattwhere.substack.com)
        
       | chunkyfunky wrote:
       | I can't say I disagree with many of the points made in the
       | article, but I am getting just a _little_ tired of what I
       | perceive to be the current trend of generalised manager-bashing
       | these days...I transitioned from dev to manager a few years back
       | and whilst I 'm definitely not the greatest leader ever, I am
       | also definitely not anything like the tired stereotypes portrayed
       | in the article (case in point: when a dev tells me "two weeks" I
       | smile and say "I believe you meant SIX weeks, right?". And then
       | it takes 4, but everyone's happy cos the stakeholders got it 2
       | weeks "early" and the dev can sleep at night knowing the code is
       | rock solid. etc.
       | 
       | This "Us vs Them" thing is bollox - we're all on the same team as
       | far as I am concerned!
       | 
       | And, even though I have a good 20+ years of development behind
       | me, I can honestly say that the two BEST engineering managers I
       | ever had were people that could not have written a line of code
       | to save their lives...they were just brilliant leaders and
       | motivators who focused on me as an individual and trusted me
       | enough to have the technical chops to get the job done whilst
       | they meat-shielded us against waves of shite from the C-suite.
       | 
       | Well anyway, what would I know, I'm just a dumb-ass manager :)
        
         | abc_lisper wrote:
         | > I can honestly say that the two BEST engineering managers I
         | ever had were people that could not have written a line of code
         | to save their lives
         | 
         | This is some truth to this. On the other hand, there are a lot
         | of dumb-ass power wielding managers who think technical chops
         | are low level stuff and look down on the engineers. The second
         | group outweighs the first by a factor of 3 at least
        
         | routerl wrote:
         | > we're all on the same team as far as I am concerned
         | 
         | Your peers have burned through all the believability of this
         | line, by using it when it is a lie.
        
           | AnimalMuppet wrote:
           | The manager who actually believes it, and lives it, will
           | eventually be believed. The managers who parrot it will be
           | ignored.
        
             | tcbawo wrote:
             | This reminds me of something that came up a while ago here,
             | Lou Holtz's three questions asked of a leader: Can I trust
             | you? Are you committed? Do you care about me?
        
         | existencebox wrote:
         | > when a dev tells me "two weeks" I smile and say "I believe
         | you meant SIX weeks, right?"
         | 
         | Wanted to chime in and say _thank you_ for giving me the prompt
         | that this is an "OK" thing to do. (as a technique for trying to
         | encourage/help devs build in good buffer)
         | 
         | As another dev-converted-to-manger, who was also somewhat taken
         | back by that same perception of the malicious manager (I
         | certainly had that perception from time to time as an eng, so
         | it's not entirely foreign although I am surprised by how
         | widespread it seems to have become) what you've written really
         | resonates with me; One consequence is that I've become way more
         | forgiving (in terms of trying to proactively improve it) for
         | what I used to perceive as "bad management" as I struggle to
         | improve my own techniques :P
         | 
         | > This "Us vs Them" thing is bollox - we're all on the same
         | team as far as I am concerned!
         | 
         | I swear I want to scream this from the rooftops in many of the
         | ragging-on-management threads I see but I know it's not the
         | dev's fault for feeling miffed, a bad manager can _wreck_ your
         | life, but I wish I had a magic password I could tell devs to
         | let them know "I'm here to make you/your work successful, not
         | the other way around, and if I'm ever failing at that I _want
         | to fix it_."
         | 
         | (As sister responses point out, this is something earned, and
         | fully agree, it can just often be an uphill battle, potentially
         | rationally from what devs have experienced prior; again just
         | trying to give everyone in the picture the benefit of the doubt
         | as I'd hope they would me.)
         | 
         | > what would I know, I'm just a dumb-ass manager
         | 
         | You're in good company :)
        
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       (page generated 2021-09-09 23:01 UTC)