Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributors or Leave

Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by solarmist on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @07:14PM (#34701984)

The distinguishing factor I've seen is servant leadership [1].

They believe that supporting and developing their people is their main job. Execution is just a prerequisite to being able to do the rest.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership

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Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by pvarangot on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @07:51PM (#34702410)

> The distinguishing factor I've seen is servant leadership

I've never encountered a servant leadership styled EM that is not also a good IC.

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Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by solarmist on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @08:01PM (#34702553)

I have, actually; my two best examples were not great engineers. They were passable, but their strengths really came out in management.

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Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by bradlys on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @08:17PM (#34702739)

The problem is that what makes a good manager for an IC does not make a good manager for the manager’s manager. They are fundamentally at odds unless you have servant leadership from the top down. (Which is nearly unheard of)

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Re:Meta to Ask Many Managers to Become Individual Contributo... by solarmist on Tuesday February 07, 2023 @08:29PM (#34702850)

I disagree. What are you thinking of that’s at odds with it?

The only thing I can think of is MBA disease. But that’s rent seeking not productive management techniques.

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