I hear you on the line of thought that here at work we do work and we keep personal things to ourselves.
I also commend you on your concern for doing things that appear fake, because people indeed are good at spotting fakeness. And I bet they appreciate that you are not acting fake, because that’s often refreshing to see, and they probably value what you have to say more as a result, and quite likely respect you considerably because of that.
For birthdays, wish the employees a happy birthday. You don’t need to get a cake or throw a party (getting cakes for birthdays stops scaling past 10 employees). But everyone should feel a little bit special on their birthday. If you don’t feel that way on your birthday, or you grew up in a family that didn’t celebrate birthdays (e.g. in a Jehovah’s Witness cult), it can be difficult to understand why it matters. But look at it as a technical challenge: can your manager “database” of people hold a birthday field? And can you trigger a smile and a “happy birthday!” greeting on each employee’s birthday? You probably can. The risk for fakeness is quite low (so don’t get a cake and make a big deal out of it), your effort is very low, but the upside for employees is a higher feeling of you caring about them as a person.
Death of a loved one is a really important thing to be aware of. Grief fucks people up and it takes at least a year to come back for it. Grieving employees will need more time and space, and are likely to struggle more. They will come back. And they will stick around more if they felt supported. Offer them to take some time off right away and support them by making sure they can take at least a few days off right away. So if someone tells you of a death of a loved one, you must take note! There’s no good advice to give, so don’t feel pressure to give any advice. Offer condolences and acknowledge that it really sucks (“I’m so sorry for your loss, I can’t imagine how difficult it is right now”). You have to be aware of this as a people manager, because your people.
Religious observances? I’m meh on that one. You can try to develop curiosity about it if the employee talks about it. Ask them why is the observance important to them? If they don’t talk about it, I leave it. For winter time, it’s happy holidays, and done with it.
Okay, a new baby is another one that’s important because your employee will have reduced sleep or be sleep-deprived and have a whole lot of new worries. Be more forgiving with the schedule, let them leave work ad hoc for baby emergencies. You do that, they are much more likely to make up work on their own time as gratitude. Ask them how they feel they are handling the workload—-is there an opportunity to change the type of tasks they are doing? Maybe they are not in a position to be writing deep design docs while they are sleep-deprived. I don’t know, but you can check in when you do your one-on-ones.
Write down their spouse or partner’s names, and write down their children’s names. Keep it in your personal manager file. You probably don’t have people with 5+ children. It’s not a lot. It’s hard to remember. But if the employee feels like they don’t have to say “my son” or “my daughter” or “my wife”, but can just say their names to you and you know who they are, it makes them feel more comfortable and more like a human being. This is another one where it’s hard to be fake—-nobody expects you to remember these things, but it sure feels nicer if you do.
Regarding feeling like you have to fake it till you make it, it’s like picking up a new habit. You have to practice. You will get better at it. It’s part of your job as a manager.
If you find it exhausting, adopt things incrementally. What’s most exhausting? Why is it exhausting? Is it because it’s on top of everything else you’re already doing for 40 hrs a week?
As a manager, you have to care about the people, because they are human beings. It’s a part of your job. You can’t not do your job. If it means you spend less time being technical, so you can spend more time managing people as people and not feel exhausted, then that’s what it means. Push back on your manager to make room to do more people stuff and less technical stuff. You can’t spend 90% of your time being technical and 10% managing, unless you have completely self-directed staff. You’re a person too—-and if you job is to manage, you must make time for it, and if there’s not time for it, then that’s your boss’s problem. If your boss doesn’t think it’s a problem, that’s on you because you haven’t told them.
Managing engineers is like herding cats. They won’t respond to lashing. And cats don’t show that they are sick because they don’t want to show weakness. So if you don’t ask about what’s going on in their personal lives, you’ll be blind to how it’s affecting their work. And because ultimately they get paid to do work, it is therefore in your interest (and company’s interest) to not be blind to how their personal life is impacting their work.
Going back to “fake it till you make it” or brute-forcing until you get better at it—-what you’re not considering is the additional information you will get or increased personal response/appreciation from your people. It might feel like brute force at first, but consider the very real possibility that it can start feeling like a smart thing to do because of the results.