I will say though, if you're going to do both, do a good job, meaning one you'd expect of your reports. Don't be a manager that hands off his half-working project "to take it over the line." Finish your work.
Right. The other comment said that people don't move into management because they are a great engineer. That doesn't mean managers haven't been engineers.
Here's what OP said:
> This isn't exactly "micromanagement" (and the article says as much) but great eng leaders not only understand things at a lower level of detail, but they're able to communicate with their team in a way that doesn't feel like micromanagement at all.
Do you disagree with this? If so, why?
If you truly do have the best knowledge, build support for your ideas through dialogue. Make engineers and other leaders feel like they own the idea.
Good managers build consensus. Good ideas build their own momentum. Bad managers use the megaphone, and push their ideas by avoiding dialogue. Even if their ideas are implemented through micromanagement/force of will, they do not stick, because no one else feels ownership.
Larson seems to think that engineering excellence from ICs is synonymous with doing what your manager tells you without question.
> It's key to not confine your conflict mining strategy to your peer group on the leadership team. “You can usually get buy-in from other executives pretty easily, but it’s much more difficult to get buy-in from people with the most context around a given problem,” he says, “Their opinion is most valuable because they are the ones who live in the details. You can’t lie to them. They know the truth of how things run.”
This immediately follows an anecdote where he talks about listening to an engineer and realizing that his approach was wrong and the engineer was right. The whole section on "micromanagement" is really about this—get down into the weeds with your engineers and listen to what they have to say.
I get from your other comment that you have had bad experiences with people "applying" Larson's ideas in the past, but I'm really not seeing that at all in this text.
This sounds like good ideas. And also sounds a lot like what I just read in the article…
I don’t think there was any presumption that eng leaders are the “best” source of ideas. But there is a presumption he tried to communicate that they should participate, because they have experience, rather than recuse themselves from technical decisions.
So what I think will is saying is not really to not trust your engineers, but to mistrust your managers.