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Comment by ninegunpi | Hacker News Reader

>I wished I had gotten more support, many companies don't know how to do that well.

It's literally the biggest leadership failure when non-managers get elected to management positions - failure to coach them by senior managers, and ends to torture for everyone. People don't get to deadlift 500lbs after lifting 20lbs for previous 10 years just because someone decided they can do it.

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There's only so much you can "teach" of that, a lot is learning on the job, but a company needs to facilitate that learning. If it was simply a matter of teaching, it would be very easy, but I think everybody knows the feeling of opening a book on "management", reading briefly into it, and then throwing it away thinking that it's all completely obvious. It's not, and you really only find out when you actually do it.

Agreed. I found that books were good for learning the language and theory of management, but the important stuff -- interacting with, influencing and negotiating with people -- that only comes from practice and reflection.

coaching does not equal teaching. teaching is learning information, coaching is ensuring skills transfer and achieving desired personal qualities.

That's just terminology, in both cases there is no way of actually creating those skills beforehand, you have to learn it while going. And that means making a non-manager a manager at some point.

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