47 karma · joined April 19, 2020
The best thing a manager can do, is to support team when he can and NOT consider himself a resource, even if he does the coding.
For me, I'm resourceful and have ways to learn how things work myself, either by googling or asking peers. If I'm asked a question that I don't know about at point blank, I usually follow this template
1. Silent thinking for 2-3 seconds
2. Talk about something closely relevant that I actually know about
3. Concludes with "that being said, let me do some digging and get back to you"
This demonstrates that I understand the question, I know something relevant, and that I'm willing find out things that idk about. Especially if you're higher up the ladder, saying you don't know requires tact, I believe this is not specific to Asia. There's a fine line between this and a bullshitter; a bs-er simply drifts away from the topic and never comes back nor willing to find things out.
That being said, I adjust my strategy according to the culture of the company that I'm working in.
Sometimes we romanticize tech company too much that we forgot that they are, at its core, just like any other company, and an engineer is just a headcount. Faang sometimes has the ability to steer away from that perception, but it remains true for almost all non-faang. Everyone below leadership is replaceable
At the end you will have yourself a team of yes-man which, ironically, is often what you really need in the kind of environment that demands saying No a lot - you need people that simply get things done accordingly without having too much ambition, that eliminates the need to put those foolish ambition to rest.