https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Task-oriented_and_relationship...
As an example, when you are deciding whether to promote someone, you can't do it on tasks completed alone, because some of that decision has to be about (1) how well the person works with teammates, and (2) whether the person's peers believe this person is competent enough for their promotion. If you don't get those two considerations right, you compromise people's trust in your competence and the fairness of the promotion system. They're fundamentally relationship and skill development issues and not deliverables.
If you want to be a good manager, you have be fluent in both approaches, and you have to learn when to use a task oriented approach vs. a relationship oriented approach.
And then you have to figure out if they need help, if they're over their head, if they're being lazy, if they're getting interrupted by stuff that's not on your radar, or WTF is really going on, and if (a) they're not telling you and (b) you have no visibility into their day (say they're remote), then it gets really hard fast.
And the more insecure they feel, the less likely they are to directly tell you they need help.
So as manager: don't joke about firing, don't joke about time at desk, don't joke about performance.
But as employee: if you get your shit down, and have talked to your manager about it, and you're both good with the amount of stuff getting done, you shouldn't be concerned with taking a day off here or there, or leaving early, or working from home. But be aware that a lot of performance monitoring stuff isn't for you, and not everyone is doing as well as you are.
This is pretty much the definition of an estimate in software.
How many managers are competent enough to judge that kind of stuff, and whether or not any excuses produced are reasonable? Even in the technical manager cases I've seen, maybe 1%. The people who constantly bs excuses are often the ones rewarded, as opposed to the people who actually focus on the work and take a little longer to get it done properly.
You say this as if technical managers are better managers? In my experience the opposite is almost always true.
Surely, as one gets more skilled, their estimates will tend to zero in on accuracy more
Skills tend to increase in nonlinear jumps, so I’m not looking for a targeted increase. I’m looking for someone to discover what they are actually capable of which is often more than they anticipate.
A great way to get there is to immerse yourself.