> He micro managed everything. He had an office manager sitting with the engineers reporting to him multiple times a day on if the engineers were sitting on the desk.
I really related to this in my last role. It's the butts-in-chairs method vs output because let's be real... most of the people promoted to middle-management can't measure actual output.
I've always been on the edge of being a manager vs. being IC and the times I've bled over into management I have this style: you're expected to be here early by 30 minutes for meetings, and if you wanna leave directly after to go work from your home office I could care less. I expect workers to be highly available via chat and phone during normal business hours (adjusted to the timezone), and generally flexible if something comes up where I need 'em in the mothership.
To measure output and success, whelp I just get on the corporate GitLab and read everyone's commits daily. Not only do I learn a TON working with solid talent... I also know who's jerkin' me around. Does this work for every WFH-type employee? Nope. Managing devs gives you a ton of black-and-white paper trails to ensure people are working the right direction.
In contrast, throughout my IC career none of my managers have managed ME this way which blows my mind. I know I'm not the most talented leader but I don't understand why dev management doesn't look at real metrics to gauge success outside of "I don't know how to read code"... =|
The way I managed also bought loyalty... like a lot of loyalty. When you get out of the way of people's lives and say, "I'm willing to make this career work with you as a person" you get an insane amount of forgiveness for being a poop manager in other areas.
Did people take advantage of me giving them this slack? Yep. Did I fire 'em for poor output? Yep - at will state sucka. IMO you'll get people taking advantage of the system regardless of how you wanna lead so the best way to hedge that risk is looking at metrics + engaging consistently with your team. Bad apples tend to stick out in a few months and you just gotta learn to fire fast to maintain the integrity of the team vs pumping your staff numbers.