Why are there so many bad managers?
jasonevanish.com
jasonevanish.com
My father (a school director) summed up his philosophy on leadership in "When you succeed, it's the team. When you fail, it's you."
Perhaps most enlightening was her stance on promotion. Our department had been, overall, falling seriously behind and, as a result, the other managers hadn't promoted anyone in many years(!). She and I discussed this one day and, to paraphrase her words, she said: "At the end of each year, there should always be someone ready for the next level or getting close. If there isn't then I haven't done my job; I haven't appropriately challenged them. My goal is the growth of my reports, and their success is mine."
Many bosses do the exact opposite.
Unfortunately, the mistakes a novice manager can make - hiring the wrong people, irritating good developers to the point where they quit the company, etc. - are much harder and more costly to clean up than the kinds of mistakes you can make as a developer. For one thing, there's a multiplier effect: your actions suddenly affect more people.
However that is not the crust of being a good manager. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) and having Empathy is. Realizing that every person is an individual and as such should be treated individually. I recommend books by Dr Paul Ekman like Emotions Revealed & on body language by Joe Navarro that will give you a head jump in working with & understanding people.
Not even sure what the article was getting at. Other than my email address. :(
It takes more than just having a human element to do well. In large part, many managers are bad because they are not given any real control. Sure, they have some control over their workers, but that only gets you so far. Unless the manager has real control up, as well, they can only be so good. This is especially so on projects that are likely in a death spiral.
Worse, though, is that many "good" managers probably don't have a real idea on exactly what makes them good. Even more perplexing, they likely did well at some point and there may not be any obvious variables that have changed from their success to their failures. Other than the outcome.
I think the human aspect can go a long way and there are still a lot of elements as you suggest that work against you. Thing is, if you do protect your team (I've heard it called "the shit umbrella") and care about them, you can do a lot to make them happier and more successful even if you're dealing with a lot of crap yourself as the manager/leader.
Soft skills are hard to measure. I'm not sure we ever will, and my hope was to make the point that the pure measurement of results often does nothing to distinguish or incentivize good from bad management.
This the first of an infinite series of correctives to the standard Bloomberg-LinkedIn-Forbesesque-BusinessInsider business media line that employees better watch their step and always put their own interests last. Their bad managers, who despise "silos" (meaning "technical silos") know better. They keep their asymmetric information to themselves: they love management silos, which must be nurtured and protected against employee incursion, lest they too get the "big picture."
The real question we should be asking is:
"Why don't bad managers help people achieve their goals even though they know it's better for everyone including themselves."
You're absolutely right. I wrote the post with the hope of getting to do some customer development interviews with those interested in what I wrote about.
Soft skills are a funny thing; to succeed as a leader/manager you need them, but it's hard to quantify strength and weakness in them.
I have some ideas for a product but didn't want to make the post about the solution.
Also, 90% of anything is bad. That includes the workforce.
Look at pro athletes; the best leaders on those teams generally are the ones that give all the credit around in wins and take ownership of losses. Peyton Manning used to throw his lineman under the bus in playoff losses and now he's all team as the Broncos are in the Super Bowl. Obviously there's other factors at play, but think about how a good leader is going to motivate his team through the human element things I talked about: people love to be recognized for things they worked hard on and it means a lot when people show they care about them. Who do you go out of the way to help on your team?
You can also learn a lot by talking to people they've worked with before re: management. I love an interview tactic I heard before where you ask someone to rank them on a scale of 1 to 10 on something. If they don't say 10 on something, you can then ask what made them not a 10 and usually get some good answers.
Do you have ideas on how to recognize and praise great managers?
How can technology help people be caring?
I hope to validate if that's just me or others similarly could use help holding onto that information and providing timely reminders. I have found it's little things like what I listed above that has greatly improved motivation and morale for the handful of teams I have worked with.
There is no app for everything. lol.. Interacting with humans & learning the theories on emotions and behavior (ref Dr Paul Ekman) is a far better direction in becoming a great manager/leader. And then obviously the responsibilities that go with management that any company should be able to provide in few days of training.