[HN Gopher] The best leaders are great individual contributors, ...
___________________________________________________________________
The best leaders are great individual contributors, not
professional managers
Author : wslh
Score : 368 points
Date : 2022-12-03 13:03 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.inc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.inc.com)
| lakomen wrote:
| That is not true, an urban myth.
|
| Leaders who don't want to be leaders are bad leaders.
|
| I lead a guild once, because I wanted to decide how my time was
| spent and didn't want other people to decide for me. I didn't
| want to be a leader. I don't want to tell people what to do. I
| don't want to give orders everyone else has to follow. I like the
| team approach. But people are conditioned to follow. Except they
| aren't following... when you apply too much pressure.
|
| I set up a website to plan raids. Paid for a domain. Went through
| the hassle to configure it and a discord server and a bridge
| between those and all I wanted was that people fucking sign up or
| off from raids. I asked them when they're available and made a
| plan most people are comfortable with. Only 5 out of 30 people
| did even register on the site. They joined the guild because it
| was advertised as a raid guild with social spots but raid being
| the main theme. A RAID GUILD. After 2 months I was so stressed
| out that I simply abandoned the guild and left the game.
|
| I can't do everything alone. When I said that I never felt so
| stressed out in all my life 2 people offered to help with leading
| raids but at that point it was too late. Some players joined from
| other guilds, got spell upgrades for free, then left the guild.
| Some people joined from other guilds to cause drama and distress.
|
| This is of course not real life. But it's close. You don't pay
| your members money for work and can't expect they follow
| guidelines. But holy crap, can you at least expect some interest
| in the main theme of the guild and them to sign up on the site
| and sign on and off of raids?
|
| I never wanted to be leader. I feel well in the role of an
| advisor, someone who helps lead. But not the sole person
| responsible for everything. I'm not perfect. No one is. I was
| overwhelmed because every piece of the hierarchy in the end asked
| me what to do. And if I postponed answering things would get
| worse.
|
| In software development I can be agile and change things around,
| but people demand stability. They want a bed already made but are
| not willing to do the effort to build that bed.
|
| In retrospect I should've continued and "fired" 90% of the
| members even if that meant the end of independent raiding. But I
| was too stressed out and losing key people, because that game was
| designed around key roles being present in a raid. I didn't make
| the necessary decisions because I didn't want to lose anyone and
| not piss anyone of. But in the end key people left regardless. So
| lesson learned if you do something, focus on just doing that one
| thing and don't get ballast on board in the first place. It's
| better to have a small, dedicated group, seeing eye to eye, than
| a large group where the majority doesn't care about success.
|
| Anyhow, see I wasn't a good manager, despite me not wanting to be
| a manager.
| iancmceachern wrote:
| This is exactly my experience, if you can't measure it you can't
| manage it, if you don't know how to do the tasks yourself, how
| can you grade others work?
| aristofun wrote:
| The core problem is that all people suddenly believe in the
| dichotomy ic/manager in the first place.
|
| This is an artificial separation.
| UweSchmidt wrote:
| It appears that outside our bubble software-work enjoys such a
| low status that management does not possess, or admits to
| possessing, any technical competence. This is in stark contrast
| to engineering or manufacturing companies, where engineers make
| up the highest levels of management and also adjacent areas like
| running the factories, and generally management prides itself
| with being hands-on, dropping knowledge and walking through the
| shop floor frequently.
|
| In an agile environment (the most common structure in software
| development) the professional class of scrum masters and analysts
| are often non-technical, and management is sparse and hands-off
| (teams are "self-organized"). Key technical decisions are
| relegated to senior individual contributors, allowing for CV
| driven development, cargo culting, and bad habits. Stories of a
| Microsoft VP who files a bug report and points out the line of
| code where the error occured could never have happened anywhere
| where I worked.
| farorm wrote:
| 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.
| swagasaurus-rex wrote:
| The non technical scrum master fills a very important role
| for higher management: somebody to take blame and
| responsibility.
| doctor_eval wrote:
| In my experience the role of non technical managers is to
| assign blame to the technical staff.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| I've never seen this, I've seen them be some kind of
| project manager role or just bubbly people who say some BS
| and convince company to pay them to waste employees time.
| civilized wrote:
| In my company, the project manager is essentially just
| there to report progress to management.
|
| Why is it necessary to report progress to management? I'm
| not sure; as far as I've seen, nothing is ever done with
| the information, except to propagate it further up the
| chain. I can only speculate that, without progress
| reporting, management would seem to have too little work
| to do to justify its headcount.
| kenjackson wrote:
| If you don't known what is done with reports on progress,
| you probably shouldn't comment on such things and should
| instead go find out.
| gijoeyguerra wrote:
| This is true. And no more buts.
| the-printer wrote:
| We should all be leery of those who actively and openly declare
| and pursue positions of leadership.
| willnonya wrote:
| I'm not sure Steve Jobs is someone you should be taking
| management advice from.
|
| The truth is that it boils down to the best person for the role
| to be filled rather than blanket statements based on anecdotes
| from a notoriously bad manager.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| Steve Jobs tried to treat his cancer with hot toddies and berries
| and died after refusing to pay child support while being a
| billionaire, why should we take notes from him on human
| relations?
| TimPC wrote:
| Because making a billion dollars in business means you are good
| at all the things regardless of any evidence to the contrary.
| waltbosz wrote:
| I find the personal attacks in this comment to be unbecoming of
| HN standards.
| hsavit1 wrote:
| so following the cult like dogma of the late steve jobs is
| more inline with HN standards? probably yes
| waltbosz wrote:
| No I never said that. My intent was never to defend Steve
| Jobs.
|
| I just think the tone of way the comment was mean spirited
| and inappropriate. I think it's important to call out bad
| behavior in the HN community.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| >I just think the tone of way the comment was mean
| spirited and inappropriate.
|
| Making a factual assertions about the behavior of a
| public figure is neither mean spirited nor inappropriate,
| especially if the intent is to avoid others coming into
| harm.
|
| You should discuss your _feelings_ with a therapist
| rather than engage in what I like to term "emotional
| terrorism" -- silencing others if they stray from your
| preferred narrative.
|
| Or, if you like, you can take a look at my comment and
| tell me how you'd prefer it be phrased, if the core
| message of " _Steve Jobs abused his family and his
| workers, why should we listen to his views on
| management?_ "
|
| (Maybe Steve _Wozniak_ would be someone better suited to
| speak on management styles... I have never, in my _life_
| heard anyone say that Woz was rude to them on purpose...
| and I 've heard a _lot_ of stories about the early days
| at Apple in the hall at Defcon or whatever.)
| TimPC wrote:
| 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.
| lambdatronics wrote:
| 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.
| zolland wrote:
| Plato said this too--no great king desires the role, but when
| assigned it they will do what must be done for the good of the
| state.
| cletus wrote:
| There are different flavors of not wanting to be a manager.
|
| The good kind Jobs refers to are people who see the necessity and
| that no one is doing it (or doing it well). They aren't the kind
| of people who don't understand people and fall into the trap of
| simply controlling and micro-managing people.
|
| Let me give you an example of the bad kind. Google's SWE ladder
| goes all the say from L3 (new grad) to L9 (ignoring exceptions
| like Google Fellow and execs). There is an expectation of growth
| from L3 to L5 (Senior SWE). There is a lot of reward if you can
| get promoted to L6 (Staff SWE) but it is incredibly difficult. It
| requires a lot of luck (eg being on the right project that
| doesn't get cancelled). Getting to L6 now is _much_ harder than
| it was 10-15 years ago.
|
| One of the things Ruth Porat did when she came in was to control
| costs by reducing the promotion target percentage because it
| wasn't visible to people (there was a leaked memo). All promo
| candidates go to committee and effectively get stack ranked
| across committees. There is a quota ("target percentage") of who
| gets promoted. This creates a backlog and raises the bar for
| getting promoted. It gives more time for your impact to dissipate
| or your project to get cancelled (which was your promotion case).
|
| Compare this to getting promoted as a manager. Your manager level
| (M0 to M2, which is the same level as L5 to L7) is effectively a
| function of your head count with the added requirement that M2
| requires you to have managers as reports. So if you're an M0
| (which is rare), getting to M1 is typically as easy as getting to
| 10-15 reports (as long as you don't screw up so badly).
|
| So there is a breed of SWEs that bridge these worlds. They're
| half an IC and half an EM in the hopes that this gets them over
| the line.
|
| In my experience, these managers were generally the absolute
| worst. They had no interest in ever being a amanager and were
| just ticking a box for an L6 promotion case. Career development
| tended to be zero. Everything was seen through the lens of what
| helped them get promoted. If that means throwing someone under
| the bus, so be it.
|
| I think one of the best things Facebook did was they effectively
| didn't allow this. Having reports as an IC generally wasn't
| allowed. Being an L5 with reports was mostly not allowed. I mean
| there were some exceptions in some orgs and for some people but
| it was exceedingly rare. You'd see people ask "why can't I be a
| manager at L5?" and you heavily suspected the main motivator for
| this question was an inability to get promoted to L6 as a SWE.
| [deleted]
| throwawaaarrgh wrote:
| This is an editorial written by someone who is heavily biased and
| doesn't know how management or organizational improvement works.
|
| > In my case, I didn't need someone to manage what we already
| did. I needed someone frustrated by our current level of
| productivity. Someone irritated by our current level of quality.
|
| That's called Operations Management, buddy, and you don't hire an
| IC for that job.
|
| > Someone annoyed by the fact very few shopfloor employees were
| being promoted to higher-level roles.
|
| That is literally every manager's job. And, one could argue, a
| bad idea in general (see Peter Principle).
|
| > "If your boss could do your job, you're more likely to be happy
| at work."
|
| Why? Because the boss has empathy and compassion for her workers,
| and makes an effort to understand the work. That doesn't mean she
| has to do the work herself. She simply needs the context and
| understanding to be able to facilitate effectively and make her
| reports happy. Anybody who cares enough can do that.
|
| I have had IC bosses who were insufferable, and non-IC bosses who
| were insufferable, and good bosses of each too. The ability to do
| the work has both helped and hindered their management. Focus on
| efficiency is good, but often efficiency isn't technical at all.
|
| Managing is it's own skill, separate from being an IC. Simply
| promoting an IC who does not know how to manage will not always
| lead to good outcomes.
| hrpnk wrote:
| Worth mentioning that management vs. IC is not a decision for
| life. Charity Majors wrote about the opportunities and challenges
| when switching throughout one's career between management and
| individual contributor [1] and [2].
|
| [1] https://charity.wtf/2017/05/11/the-engineer-manager-
| pendulum...
|
| [2] https://charity.wtf/2022/03/24/twin-anxieties-of-the-
| enginee...
| elgar1212 wrote:
| The thing about the IC -> management path that bothers me (and
| makes me skeptical of people who take it) is that programming and
| getting PRs merged is so god damn satisfying
|
| Going from this to just having meetings, training people, looking
| at dashboards... I can't imagine anyone doing this who genuinely
| likes programming. Even if the pay is better
|
| The people who are the most inspiring (and also the best at
| getting shit done) are the ones who make it very far in the IC
| path and become team leads. Team leads are the best managers, the
| actual managers are just there to do boilerplate shit and
| politicking that team leads aren't interested in
|
| (disclaimer: not talking about all managers or all companies,
| just the ones I've personally experienced)
| rocketpastsix wrote:
| yes its awesome to have my work merged, even though Im not
| supposed to be doing a lot of coding. But what is equally
| awesome is when the junior developer who I manage does the
| implementation work I laid out and gets her PR merged. Even
| better if it can get through with her defending all of the
| choices she made (even if we pair on it) versus coming to me to
| help in the comments.
| therealdrag0 wrote:
| I sympathize because even being a team lead has reduced my
| coding enough I sometimes code in my free time to make up for
| it cuz I enjoy it.
|
| But I think your mistake is saying only those who love coding
| are "most inspiring" and most "get shit done". There's
| definitely lots of people who love to get shit done who are
| indifferent about coding.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| And the best politicians never want to be politicians.
| __derek__ wrote:
| 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, mentorship, etc.
| FlyingAvatar wrote:
| What is the role of the manager, if they are not providing
| guidance and mentorship?
| lambdatronics wrote:
| "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...
| thenerdhead wrote:
| 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.
| rcarr wrote:
| Basically, be Aragorn (movie version).
| antipaul wrote:
| More details, from the people behind Apple's internal leadership
| training:
|
| Ever since Steve Jobs implemented the functional organization,
| Apple's managers at every level, from senior vice president on
| down, have been expected to possess three key leadership
| characteristics:
|
| 1. deep expertise that allows them to meaningfully engage in all
| the work being done within their individual functions
|
| 2. immersion in the details of those functions;
|
| 3. and a willingness to collaboratively debate other functions
| during collective decision-making.
|
| When managers have these attributes, decisions are made in a
| coordinated fashion by the people most qualified to make them.
|
| Article: https://hbr.org/2020/11/how-apple-is-organized-for-
| innovatio...
| rawgabbit wrote:
| But that runs counter to all the arguments professional scrum
| masters and agile evangelists make. "All you need to do know is
| agile/scrum/fad du jour". /s
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| A special kind of disaster happens when a manager thinks they
| have deep expertise but they don't. I have to be actively
| vigilant of what this manager is doing because one statement
| could lead to hours wasted. Just the other day they were about
| to launch a whole S3 tangent involving two teams because some
| report came back saying a few EBS volumes were not encrypted.
| shepherdjerred wrote:
| Interactions with my managers at Amazon made me a much more
| cynical human being (at least when it comes to
| managers/corporate politics).
| diego_moita wrote:
| I wonder what kind of people are these Steve Jobs cultists...
|
| Most of the "wisdom" of all "Steve Jobs said..." is just
| subjective interpretation of vague and ambiguous statements.
|
| Truth, the guy had a lot of successes. But if you look at them
| most were just accidental and he only recognized them as success
| when they hit him in the face.
|
| * Apple didn't "invent" the Mac, all of it's technologies were
| copied straight out of Xerox's Palo Alto research center. He
| found them in a demo.
|
| * Jobs didn't "invent" Pixar. George Lucas and Ed Catmull did it.
| His project was to create an hardware company (the only thing he
| knew to do) and to sell it. But Pixar "accidentally" found
| success creating animated intros for commercials and television
| shows and Jobs did nothing to discover this early market.
|
| * Jobs didn't invent the iPhone. He was scared of dealing in an
| area where Apple didn't have expertise and tought it would be
| dangerous (a call to 911 failing because the phone could be stuck
| in a processing task). It took years of internal pressure by
| Apple engineers and management and a personal fiasco on a Nokia
| phone with iTunes for him to accept the iPhone.
|
| * Jobs didn't invent the AppStore. For the first 6 months the
| iPhone didn't had an AppStore because he tought it would
| relinquish control of the platform to others. He only accepted it
| because in these first 6 months the iPhone sales were a disaster.
| He accepted the AppStore because the customers were screamming
| for it. It was the AppStore that saved the iPhone.
|
| * Jobs didn't invent the Apple I, Wozniak did it. And the idea to
| turn the kit into a functional computer was not Jobs'. It was a
| precondition imposed by a RadioShack manager.
|
| * NEXT wasn't a commercial success. An expensive computer for
| college students with a black and white monitor was not selling
| enough to sustain the company. He was basically lucky that at the
| same time, Apple under Sculley, was a much bigger failure and the
| management board called him back.
|
| "Reality distortion field" and "stealing" other people's ideas
| were Jobs' greatest talents. But then, these are the talents of
| most cult founders from Jim Jones to Donald Trump.
| coldtea wrote:
| That's a distorted view of what business is. You don't need to
| invent anything to be a great business or a great business
| leader: just to do it in a form that the market appreciates.
|
| In fact the invention is mostly irrelevant to the business
| part. Ford didn't invent the car either, IKEA didn't invent the
| furniture (not even the self-assembly furniture), and Walmart
| etc. didn't invent the supermarket.
| monsieurbanana wrote:
| I'm predisposed to dislike Steve Jobs (I'm predisposed to
| dislike anyone who exploits other people tbh, so virtually all
| high-profile CEO).
|
| But there's already 5 pretty big successes in your list. At
| which point it stops being statically improbable he isn't
| exceptionally talented by some kind of metric?
| pwdisswordfish9 wrote:
| Can you read? The point being made is that none of them were
| his.
| Jensson wrote:
| He didn't have the ideas, but he was a core part building
| the organizations. So you shouldn't listen to him when it
| comes to computer engineering, but you probably should
| listen to his thoughts on leadership and organizations.
| coldtea wrote:
| The point being that this is irrelevant. Do you think Bezos
| invented Cloud services or coded AWS himself? Did Musk
| invent the electric car? Did Ford invent the regular car?
|
| It's about leading and putting things to market and
| succeding there, not about inventing stuff. They're not in
| the inventing or research business, they are in the selling
| commercial products business.
| diego_moita wrote:
| Meanwhile there were a lot of failures: Apple Newton, Lisa,
| Copland, G4 cube, Pippin gaming console, the Nokia-iTunnes
| fiasco, ...
| coldtea wrote:
| The Newton, Pippin and Copland were done before and without
| Jobs. And Lisa wasn't his thing (the Mac was, he was remove
| from being involved with Lisa).
|
| As for the G4 cube, it is just a failed model, not some
| huge company bet - every company has some models that don't
| sell well. Apple's laptops and iMacs still sold greatly
| from Jobs new iMac to this day - if a particular model
| didn't do well that's not exactly a big deal. In fact it's
| an expected part of doing business. Apple had several other
| such products on its way to becoming the #1 valued company
| on earth.
|
| Also, what Nokia-iTunes fiasco? Nokia folded, and iTunes
| became the biggest music store, and then an app store and a
| streaming service.
| sumedh wrote:
| > all of it's technologies were copied straight out of Xerox's
|
| Not sure copied is the right word, Xerox bought shares of Apple
| and in return Apple got to use Xerox's tech.
| diego_moita wrote:
| True, but those are just the conditions on which Xerox
| accepted to be copied.
|
| Xerox' acceptance to be copied doesn't change the fact that
| the whole concept of GUIs and LANs were alien to Apple.
|
| Please note that I used the term "copied", not "stealed".
| sumedh wrote:
| > whole concept of GUIs and LANs were alien to Apple
|
| But Apple knew the potential because of Jobs.
| sine_towers wrote:
| Uh huh. Who exactly lives in the reality distortion field? You
| seem to have a lot of pent-up hate for a dead person.
| Firebrand wrote:
| Aaron Sorkin made the most concise counterargument to this in
| Steve's biopic:
|
| "Musicians play their instruments. I play the orchestra."
|
| https://youtu.be/-9ZQVlgfEAc
| pleb_nz wrote:
| They're quite different roles and traits so I don't know people
| think this is the case.
|
| Not all managers are leaders and not not leaders are managers.
|
| The best leader I know owns and runs a fairly massive company and
| does no or at least, very little management. And the company uses
| the knowledge that leaders and managers are different to run a
| well oiled machine. They put managers in where managers are
| needed and use leaders where leaders are required. Of course
| there is crossover in places and they hire with the two traits in
| mind for those positions.
| bitL wrote:
| Manager wannabes should be screened for narcissism and sociopathy
| and rejected if exhibiting these or similar traits.
| Unfortunately, recruiters are often already screening for these
| traits for the top management candidates and reject anyone who
| doesn't exhibit them.
| coffeefirst wrote:
| It's also really hard to parse that stuff out until you see
| people in action.
|
| Any self-aggrandizing jackass can talk a good game about
| servant leadership or supporting the team as a whole in an
| interview, and then go on to make himself the main character.
| Some of the worst of them are really, really good at telling
| you whatever you want to hear, and will gladly perform
| humility.
|
| I don't have an answer for this besides hope there's someone
| above them who will observe this behavior and nip it in the
| bud.
| codegeek wrote:
| My take: Great IC skill is a necessary but not sufficient
| condition to be a great leader. Leadership requires various other
| skills and experiences.
| zhte415 wrote:
| Only one article cited,and it's about employee wellbeing which
| while an important topic is not the catch-all 'best leaders'
| headline.
|
| So, to play Devil's Advocate, a study [1] of a technology
| company, Microsoft, that finds that
|
| > technical skills are not the sign of greatness for an
| engineering manager.
|
| [1] What makes a great manager of software engineers?
| https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/8094304
| RustLove wrote:
| I completely agree with this. The best leaders are those who have
| proven themselves to be great individual contributors before
| moving into a management role. This gives them a deep
| understanding and appreciation for the work that their team
| members do, which is crucial for effective leadership.
| Professional managers, on the other hand, may not have the same
| level of experience and can sometimes struggle to effectively
| support and lead their team.
| Patrol8394 wrote:
| Yes, but, the problem with ic becoming managers is that they
| are too involved with eng work. Often dictating how things
| should be done. Also, they have hard time letting their beloved
| legacy code go.
|
| Best managers are IC who have the ability to trust their eng to
| do the work. Their main role should be "advice", provide
| context and connections within the company.
| newsclues wrote:
| Good management is just leadership.
|
| Real leaders understand the burden of command and take it
| seriously and the stress is not sustainable for nearly anyone for
| the long term, so experienced leaders don't want to do it unless
| it's absolutely essential.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| I don't want any job at all.
|
| Does that make me a good manager
| matt_s wrote:
| Find a large multi-national company that isn't in tech, get a
| job in IT or doing software of some kind and move up into
| management. You really want to be in a cost center and get into
| middle management, I still can't fathom what those people did
| for the company, complete waste of space. So go do that, LOL.
| Or do the opposite of all that and feel connected to and enjoy
| your work by seeing that it has an impact on your customers.
| trentnix wrote:
| As a manager, I want to see myself in what he said because I
| really enjoy writing code and engineering solutions. But honestly
| , I don't think the "want to" matters all that much when it comes
| to management.
|
| I do think many good managers are problem solvers. They are often
| hands-on, in the thick of ideation and problem-solving.
|
| They have the knowledge necessary to evaluate the competence and
| solutions submitted by the people being managed. And that
| knowledge and skill also helps them understand what their reports
| need to succeed.
| antipaul wrote:
| I love the "manager as problem solver".
|
| It's a somewhat tricky balance between "micromanagement" and
| problem-solving, but then problem solving is a bit of a
| discipline after all.
| oldstrangers wrote:
| 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.
| thenerdhead wrote:
| I get the spirit of what you're saying, but to realistically be
| able to do the work seems a bit far. This would be hard to
| apply to even Steve Jobs. Maybe another way to phrase it might
| be that they should intimately understand what the vision of
| the work entails rather than need to always ask for the next
| horizon.
| [deleted]
| oldstrangers wrote:
| The entire spirit of the article and research though is that
| workers make better managers than pure managers. They don't
| need to actually DO the work, but understanding to that level
| is invaluable and why Steve emphasized it so much.
| etempleton wrote:
| Not always, but sometimes, the problem with people who want to
| manage is that they want to direct work. They like that power
| dynamic. I find the best managers kind of hate telling people
| want to do, but will if and when they have to.
| ebjaas_2022 wrote:
| Dave Cutler is, seemingly, a good example of this. If you have
| not read it, I recommend the book Show Stopper! by G. Pascal
| Zachary, about the development of Microsoft Windows NT under his
| leadership.
| instance wrote:
| I know an amazing IC at a software company I once worked at that
| I still keep in touch with. He has extremely deep technical
| knowledge, which you can simply deduct from basically everyone in
| the company (even from other teams) coming to him for advice.
| He's been at the company for >10 years.
|
| He has strong opinions on current processes and just _getting
| things done_.
|
| This post resonated deeply with me, since I've discussed before
| with him his role and how it could evolve. I know for a fact that
| he dislikes lots of meeting and really likes working on the core
| product, and so far hasn't really jumped on the opportunity to go
| into management - he doesn't _really_ want to be manager. So he
| is kind of exactly the guy the post is describing. The company is
| growing though and he is very slowly getting pushed by the head
| of development into a more managerial role..
|
| Let's see how it works out. I believe he is going to be a great
| manager though.
| phkahler wrote:
| Some of the best I've seen are highly technical people who
| moved into management and then realized they can actually do
| _more_ by leveraging their people. It 's not the same hands-on,
| but they enjoy working with others to get things done.
| 90d wrote:
| I cannot wait to compare the LinkedIn comments this receives in
| comparison to the HN discussion.
|
| popcorn.gif
| crsv wrote:
| I've encountered significant evidence of the opposite being true
| in my experience
| codexjourneys wrote:
| Agree that great managers are sometimes individual contributors
| who take on the job because they believe doing so is the only way
| to ensure effectiveness. But it's important to filter for ego-as-
| motivation, which can make for a terrible manager....
|
| There's another type of great manager, too, whose best quality is
| their ability to defend the team from b.s. and politics
| originating elsewhere in the organization. This is especially
| valuable in large, established companies.
| tartrate wrote:
| Reading the article, according to Steve Jobs, the best managers
| are the people who are so good that they realise that they must
| do it themselves, even if they don't want to. The title of the
| article thus has only a necessary but not sufficient condition
| according to what Steve originally meant. In other words:
| Clickbait.
| obblekk wrote:
| 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 distinction because even group 1 managers usually
| have to raise their hand and say something like "can we please
| stop messing this up. I can help."
|
| Rarely is an awesome individual magically called upon to become a
| manager, particularly by poor managers who are already messing
| stuff up.
|
| In an environment where management is good, there's a longer
| cycle of development, mentorship, and nudging of high potential
| people into management. But if you're not in that environment,
| you probably need to ask to help make it better. It won't happen
| magically.
| mdorazio wrote:
| I'd say the worst managers are the ones who decide that
| management is the best path to money, competence and effort be
| damned.
| etempleton wrote:
| I would say the worst are those who like the power and
| authority management titles provide.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| _> management is the best path to money, competence and
| effort be damned_
|
| Basically every German company ever. ICs be dammed.
| formerly_proven wrote:
| Where management is literally the only career path in
| almost every company.
| thih9 wrote:
| And you get promoted until what you do changes so much
| that you're not good at it anymore, so you can't justify
| another promotion and you remain a middle manager.
| xyzwave wrote:
| This is called the Peter Principle.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| They're not the worst, they're just a waste of money, they
| could just not exist and probably everyone else would be
| better off. They're a -2.
|
| That said, there are plenty of managers who put in a lot of
| effort into ruining everyone else life to satisfy their ego
| or what their understanding of the job is. They're -100000.
| gopalv wrote:
| > 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 name of
| hirelings, nor by secretly helping themselves out of the public
| revenues to get the name of thieves. And not being ambitious
| they do not care about honour. Wherefore necessity must be laid
| upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of
| punishment.
|
| And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to
| take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been
| deemed dishonourable.
|
| Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to
| rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.
|
| And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the good to take
| office, not because they would, but because they cannot help
| --not under the idea that they are going to have any benefit or
| enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because they are
| not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is better
| than themselves, or indeed as good. """
|
| Stuff that was true two millenia ago, still continues to be the
| same.
|
| [1] - http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.mb.txt
| lossolo wrote:
| 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 punishment. The worst punishment,
| according to the author, is the fear of being ruled by
| someone who is worse than oneself. This fear is what
| ultimately compels good people to take office, even though
| they do not want to and do not expect to benefit from it. The
| author suggests that good people take office out of a sense
| of necessity, because they are not able to entrust the task
| of ruling to anyone who is better than themselves.
| ancientworldnow wrote:
| Really excellent job illustrating chatgpt obliterates
| nuance, perfect for those unwilling to read beyond a
| paragraph and contemplate their lingering thoughts and
| questions.
| drekipus wrote:
| This reads like the pr comments of a junior on my team
| thenerdhead wrote:
| 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.
| baruch wrote:
| The main reason I took my first management position was after
| I remembered the pain of refusing a previous offer and
| getting an awful manager to lead the team.
|
| Though I do not think I'm very good at managing myself.
| Though I might be an OK leader.
| shanusmagnus wrote:
| In my experience, leadership and management are pretty
| disjoint. You can be good at one and not good at the other.
| Although, FWIW, I suspect that your introspection about
| whether or not you're a good manager means you're a lot
| better than you're giving yourself credit for.
| dalbasal wrote:
| >>particularly by poor managers who are already messing stuff
| up.
|
| Key point. People are political creatures, and in a workplace
| this is very often dominant.
| karaterobot wrote:
| 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 somewhat
| mitigates this effect. However, in the past, this was a
| widespread phenomenon, and it's still out there to some extent.
| You find contributors who think management is easier, or more
| prestigious, or less prone to ageism, and so will switch
| tracks.
| kazen44 wrote:
| 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.
| agrippanux wrote:
| In defense of your 2.b manager, many organizations are
| improperly set up where the only way to advance is to move
| into management.
| nopinsight wrote:
| To have a large impact in most orgs, one often needs to
| directly influence how other people work. In software, the
| leverage might come from technical output instead.
|
| This might be a deeper reason why moving into management is
| often necessary for most orgs. Exceptions include software-
| focused organizations where code can be one's channel for
| impact.
| etempleton wrote:
| it is a very real fear. When you look around and realize
| everyone that works at a company that is over 60 is in upper
| management it becomes clear that you either move up or out. I
| have also noticed it is sometimes hard to keep up with
| certain types of work after a certain age. The strength you
| retain as you get older is wisdom of experience.
| zaphar wrote:
| I never wanted to be a manager until I experienced one of the
| worst managers I had ever run across and decided maybe I should
| revise that particular opinion.
|
| I'm now a VP and I make it my goal not to be that kind of a
| manager. I do still sometimes wish I were just a regular coder
| though. There is a lot of stuff about being a manager I
| wouldn't wish on my worst enemy.
| pbronez wrote:
| Are you me?
|
| I also miss doing the individual contributor stuff. But... I
| know the business. I know the team. I know the pain points,
| why the exist, and the organizational dynamics that allow
| them to persist. Now that I have moved from informal to
| formal leadership, I try to focus on:
|
| (1) adroitly executing the approvals and things where I could
| screw up the team by being slow
|
| (2) coaching individual team members to build on their
| strengths and mitigate their weaknesses
|
| (3) improving our corporate processes, tools and culture to
| systematically make it easier for the team to do the high
| value stuff we need from them
|
| (4) recruiting excellent people who bring new perspectives
| and experiences to broaden our horizons... ideally coachable
| people ready to participate enthusiastically in #2
|
| (5) crafting a team strategy that guides individual team
| members to work that utilizes their skills while combining
| with their colleagues to deliver more than we could
| individually... all in line with the overall corporate
| direction and communicated in a way that is congruent with
| the current political winds.
|
| It is so. Much. Harder!
| Aeolun wrote:
| Now imagine trying to do the same thing as an IC :(
| marnett wrote:
| ICs can gain high levels of leadership leverage, not via
| teams and people (thought possible), but via the
| technical projects/designs/paradigms they implement.
| thatwasunusual wrote:
| > 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.
|
| Pretty much this, but I want to refine the statement: "the
| worst managers are those who _want_ to manage."
| vitaflo wrote:
| Yup, the best manager I ever had (by far) did not want to be
| manager. But she was made manager when half our team was laid
| off (including our manager) and she was the most senior of
| the bunch left. She was amazing because she was good at
| telling higher up's "no" when they would try to take
| advantage of our team.
|
| The worst manager I ever had desperately wanted to become
| manager from a group of IC's and brown-nosed his way into the
| job. His first day as manager he says "I was promoted to
| manager because I can do all of your jobs better than you
| can". He could not. He was horrible (and was eventually
| fired).
| ajmurmann wrote:
| 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 also is a top IC
| even after years managing and managing managers?
| farorm wrote:
| I struggle a lot with this, I'm trying todo some side
| projects to keep up but man it's hard. I think the only way
| is to on a high level keep up with new technologies and best
| practices.
| gtaylor wrote:
| 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.
| ajmurmann wrote:
| It's the article's entire point that top IC's make better
| managers, no?
| refsab wrote:
| I'm a counterpoint to this.
|
| Outstanding IC wanting to get into management for job security /
| ageism. Turned out to be a bad manager too focused on team and
| unable to effectively manage up and sideways.
|
| I'm now a consultant. Ageism is suddenly on my side in
| consulting. Coding until I die.
| tartoran wrote:
| Im just curious here. Did your team love you or hate you? Were
| they happy with your focus on them besides your managing
| upwards and sideways inefficiencies?
| sph wrote:
| 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 qualified
| for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the
| mental clarity and strength of nerve necessary for difficult
| decisions. One must beware of anyone who is both stupid and
| hardworking; he must not be entrusted with any responsibility
| because he will always only cause damage."
| etempleton wrote:
| 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.
| sph wrote:
| 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.
| debacle wrote:
| Being a manager is like having kids.
|
| A lot of people don't want to have kids, because they see how
| other people's kids behave. You can do the right things and raise
| incredible children.
|
| A lot of people don't want to be a manager, because they see how
| other people behave as managers. You can do the right things and
| be an incredible manager.
| quelltext wrote:
| Unfortunately, my impression is that there are more bad
| examples than good ones. I have some notion of what I'd want my
| managers (or I if I became one) not do, but I don't know what
| is necessary to be a good manager.
| TimPC wrote:
| I think you have a very skewed view on why people aren't having
| kids. Many people want kids but choose not to have them because
| they can't afford enough space for them or don't want to raise
| them while living with their parents. The number of people
| scared off by watching a few bad apples misbehave is a
| negligible fraction.
| gardenhedge wrote:
| I think this is wrong and is an unhealthy way to look at
| management. Comparing workers to kids is.. not defensible.
| 988747 wrote:
| But in many countries this view is even directly written into
| the law.
|
| In my country for example, employer must know at all times
| where the employee is, because they are responsible for any
| accidents that happen to them during the work hours. And to
| avoid those accidents you have to provide them with stupid
| things like instruction manuals for microwave, or electric
| kettle usage, because apparently employee cannot be trusted
| with operating those devices safely. You, the employer are
| also responsible for doing their taxes for them (i.e. paying
| monthly deductions), as well as sending them to the doctor
| every once in the while for routine check-ups.
|
| One of the reasons that I work as freelancer is to avoid such
| bullshit.
|
| On the plus side, your liability, as an employee, for any
| damages caused is limited to 3 monthly salaries, because,
| being just a kid, you cannot be held fully responsible for
| your own mistakes.
| sokoloff wrote:
| As a manager, most of what I do that's good is nearly
| invisible; when I do clown something, it's usually highly
| visible.
| seahawks78 wrote:
| In the article that has been cited in the link the abstract says
| "Science says". I wonder if the writer even knows what Science is
| or means? No wonder our mass media today and public discourses
| are filled with utter quality garbage rhetoric and discussions
| that are not even worthy of two minutes of reading time.
| walnutclosefarm wrote:
| I think the article, and many of the comments here, miss the
| point badly. No manager of a team doing technically complex and
| creative work can for very long remain capable of doing all the
| work themselves. Modern projects and processes simply require too
| much specialized knowledge to function for that to work. What
| managers need that (probably) comes from having been a strong
| individual contributor is sufficient knowledge of the fields
| involved in what they're managing to be able to understand the
| critical elements in the project or process in the context of the
| overall goal, and to be able to evaluate well the value of ideas
| for improvement or problem solution that come out of their team.
| But they also need leadership and management skills. The latter
| are not the same as, and are not developed by, stellar individual
| contributor skills. Furthermore, it's important to understand
| that management and leadership are not the same thing.
|
| My personal experience has been that I was a very able individual
| contributor, and that I was able to learn leadership skills (that
| is, how to inspire people; how to recognize their strengths and
| weaknesses and assign work that played to the former, and created
| opportunities to ameliorate the latter; how to point individuals
| and teams in fruitful directions without having (or often being
| able to) do all the hard work of pushing in that direction
| myself) by diligent study of people and myself. But I was never
| able to become more than a barely competent manager - I always
| had, by design, an "administrative partner" on my team who
| brought those abilities to the table - and I always paid
| attention to what they had to say. That combination (technical
| knowledge, leadership skills, and sub-contracted management
| skills) carried me from individual contributor to team lead, to
| product line lead, to CTO of highly successful $10B billion
| medical and technology organization in 20 years.
| fuzzfactor wrote:
| >The best leaders are great individual contributors, not
| professional managers
|
| Duh.
|
| For a technical business to have the most unfair advantage
| (well above patents, etc.) there has got to be the most
| technical competence/productivity at the very top.
|
| There's still an unfair advantage if there's _as much_
| competence at the top, but when it 's the most that's when it's
| really the most unfair.
|
| Jobs was an outstanding visionary, salesman, task-oriented and
| goal oriented manager, but without Woz at the top along with
| him Apple would have been greatly limited.
|
| Once things took off they could build some bigger teams, on
| paper it looked like they could afford anything. It was
| expected to require more than one engineer to design as salable
| a product as Woz could do single-handedly.
|
| By 1985 Jobs was reminiscing about being burned:
|
| >We're going to be a big company, we thought. So let's hire
| "professional managers." We went out and hired a bunch of
| professional management, and it didn't work at all.
|
| >They knew how to manage, but they didn't know how to _do_
| anything.
|
| As this took place it required more & more personnel, as well
| as these non-domain managers to go with them, in order to
| accomplish less than Woz and a small team. It was a no brainer.
|
| What a person can do single handedly turns out to be the best
| indication of how much more they can do with a proper high
| leadership position (if they are willing), especially when
| compared to "professional managers" without the domain
| expertise to hold their own when there's no technical team
| backing them up.
|
| Not how many people the impressive manager has managed before,
| even if there was legitimate positive financial outcome in
| their background.
|
| Once there was a competent all-technical team, if less wizardly
| than Woz himself, Jobs could sell that just as well, Woz was
| well set, and he was out of there with his shares in Apple
| wisely held.
|
| If Apple had not recognized this as early as they did, there
| would be no way Apple could have gotten as big as they are now.
|
| >I always had, by design, an "administrative partner" on my
| team who brought those abilities to the table - and I always
| paid attention to what they had to say. That combination
| (technical knowledge, leadership skills, and sub-contracted
| management skills) carried me
|
| Woz could legitimately say this about Jobs which is a true
| measure of whether there was adequate technical leadership at
| the very top during his time.
| Victerius wrote:
| "And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to
| take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed
| dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he
| who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse
| than himself. And the fear of this, as I conceive, induces the
| good to take office, not because they would, but because they
| cannot help --not under the idea that they are going to have any
| benefit or enjoyment themselves, but as a necessity, and because
| they are not able to commit the task of ruling to any one who is
| better than themselves, or indeed as good. For there is reason to
| think that if a city were composed entirely of good men, then to
| avoid office would be as much an object of contention as to
| obtain office is at present; then we should have plain proof that
| the true ruler is not meant by nature to regard his own interest,
| but that of his subjects; and every one who knew this would
| choose rather to receive a benefit from another than to have the
| trouble of conferring one."
|
| Plato, _The Republic_
| qwertyuiop_ wrote:
| Empirically speaking 90% of the managers out there became so
| because they were intentional in becoming managers. The reasons
| are myriad. Most want the power so they can hire or fire. Others
| with reaching the job safety inherently built into the role.
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| A lot of IC historically become managers not because they
| particularly care about doing performance reviews but because
| they want more influence and to work at a larger scale. This
| leads to a situation of people managers who care less about
| managing people than managing delivery and technology strategy.
| The best of those also have a lot of empathy and inadvertently
| are good at people management.
|
| Another reason, often related in my experience, is a lot of
| companies careers plateau for ICs pretty early on. Your comp
| stops growing beyond COLA, titles exhaust, and despite being
| young you're at a terminal career velocity. The only thing way
| to break up is to become management. This isn't surprising -
| who controls promotion and comp other than managers, and why on
| earth wouldn't they structure things to reward themselves and
| people like them? There are many companies that have recognized
| this and created IC paths parallel to management, at least up
| to the C level. However the relative difficulty in achieving
| them is disproportionately weighted against the IC vs manager.
| At Amazon there's a crap ton of VP and Director managers. But
| it's absurdly hard to get senior principal or distinguished
| engineer. The rationale is they want to keep the prestige of
| the level high for IC. But that's weird - the prestige of the
| same level in management must therefore be low and why is the
| bar different for the same level if you're managing vs
| building?
| leetrout wrote:
| Spot on.
|
| I am so tired of the competitiveness in engineering to make
| the next pay band.
|
| You cant rely on a portion if teammates because they are
| jockeying for position and in other situations your opinion
| isnt valued because you are not high enough on the
| engineering ladder.
| bumby wrote:
| This was a disgusting revelation to me once when I heard
| someone openly say, "I didn't know he was a Pay Band X! I
| need to start listening to him." And then when he was found
| out to not actually be in that pay band, they reverted back
| to dismissing his ideas.
| dimitar wrote:
| I think the solution is to hire both, because there is also the
| Peter principle: "promoted to incompetence".
|
| The professional managers should be in a deputy position to the
| promoted ICs. This way they can bring their skills and expertise
| in management and empower the promoted ICs who understand the
| business or problems deeply.
|
| The professional managers can be pretty useful if they don't have
| people reporting to them and help with processes, compliance,
| planning, making presentations and excel tables and yet the
| capacity for damage will be limited as the promoted ICs will need
| approve anything.
|
| DEC apparently had "administration" instead of management,
| implying it didn't rule but rather assist, but I don't know the
| exact details.
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