4 ms·

I've had a boss who was very competent technically, but was completely incompetent as a people manager. Somehow he rose to a VP level, but still wanted to micro

by baursak 10y ago

I've had a boss who was very competent technically, but was completely incompetent as a people manager. Somehow he rose to a VP level, but still wanted to micromanage everything down to individual code reviews. It was comical at times. Eventually he was fired.

quantumhobbit 10y ago
Successful managers need both people and technical skills. That is why it isn't an easy job.
- wageslave2 10y ago
  Actually technical skills and then people skills and in that order.
  - dagw 10y ago
    Absolutely disagree. They need enough technical skills to understand gist of what is going on, but beyond that they should be deferring to the people on the team with the most relevant experience/expertise in technical questions. The most important skill my boss can have is the ability to sweet talk his boss.
  - tabeth 10y ago
    I disagree. A manager is not an individual contributor. It's important for them to have technical skills, but I don't think it's necessary they be on par with an average developer, let alone better than the best. * The developers they're managing.
gt2 10y ago
I had a similar experience but not sure the guy was ever fired. I ignored the soft skill deficit he had and enjoyed the fact that a manager cared about the code.
rc_bhg 10y ago
He just needed to learn to let go a little trust the people who work for him.
zzalpha 10y ago
The real shame is that his boss didn't know how to manage him. Unfortunately, it's not unusual for middle managers to languish without decent coaching. I feel like this often happens due to one or more of: a) the senior management chain was similarly not coached and so they wouldn't recognize a management failure if it bit them in the arse, b) the evaluation structures in place aren't suited to evaluating management types so bad management is "invisible" (e.g. skip level feedback), or c) there's an expectation that if you promote someone into management because they were a strong staff member at the line level, that they'll just automatically excel as a manager, too. I suspect there are a lot of bad managers out there that could've avoided their fate with early intervention...

by baursak 10y ago

quantumhobbit 10y ago

Successful managers need both people and technical skills. That is why it isn't an easy job.

wageslave2 10y ago
Actually technical skills and then people skills and in that order.
- dagw 10y ago
  Absolutely disagree. They need enough technical skills to understand gist of what is going on, but beyond that they should be deferring to the people on the team with the most relevant experience/expertise in technical questions. The most important skill my boss can have is the ability to sweet talk his boss.
- tabeth 10y ago
  I disagree. A manager is not an individual contributor. It's important for them to have technical skills, but I don't think it's necessary they be on par with an average developer, let alone better than the best. * The developers they're managing.

gt2 10y ago

I had a similar experience but not sure the guy was ever fired. I ignored the soft skill deficit he had and enjoyed the fact that a manager cared about the code.

rc_bhg 10y ago

He just needed to learn to let go a little trust the people who work for him.

zzalpha 10y ago

The real shame is that his boss didn't know how to manage him. Unfortunately, it's not unusual for middle managers to languish without decent coaching. I feel like this often happens due to one or more of: a) the senior management chain was similarly not coached and so they wouldn't recognize a management failure if it bit them in the arse, b) the evaluation structures in place aren't suited to evaluating management types so bad management is "invisible" (e.g. skip level feedback), or c) there's an expectation that if you promote someone into management because they were a strong staff member at the line level, that they'll just automatically excel as a manager, too. I suspect there are a lot of bad managers out there that could've avoided their fate with early intervention...