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This is why managers need a high level of emotional intelligence, the ability to empathize and quickly place themselves in the position of others. Without those

This is why managers need a high level of emotional intelligence, the ability to empathize and quickly place themselves in the position of others. Without those three qualities management is ill equipped to handle these kinds of things sensibly. Sadly the above traits are more deemed leadership qualities rather than management qualities and so often missing in management. Leadership skills are far harder to teach than management skills and also rarer in the population than the number it management roles there are to fill.

reportgunner 6y ago
I have also personally witnessed a corporation insisting that I learn exclusively management practices in a multi-session Leadership Education and 'selling' it to me as "leadership".
disgruntledphd2 6y ago
To add to that, if you have a senior IC with leadership skills and a manager without, the senior IC won't last long, either through rage quitting or slow-walking out the door by the manager who's threatened by the senior IC.
zimbatm 6y ago
Even the best manager is faced with a bandwidth problem. It's impossible to collect accurately everything that the engineers are doing. And each layer of management is applying its own compression on what information they get from the levels below. What is frustrating when having the feet on the ground (or in the code), is that we clearly see the issues on our level. But conveying that in a understandable and nuanced manner would require too much context. IMO a good solution is to leave breathing room in the agenda and trust that the engineers will work on fixing those issues. By making them somewhat autonomous they can skip the politics and get right down to make their lives and the product a better place.
- Perseids 6y ago
  A complementary phrasing is to apply the subsidiarity principle ("the principle that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed at a more local level" – OED) to companies, which would be the antithesis of micro-management. When your boss is an enabler first and a decision maker second, they are already following a variation of that principle. I wish there was a standard way to work against the institutionalized trust issues that creep up in larger companies. E.g. when managers can only take actions if they can show an issue exists using their (arbitrary) metrics, and not when their reports directly tell them about it.
  - sdoering 6y ago
    thanks. you just gave me the wording for a principle I was trying to verbalize.
Yizahi 6y ago
There is an opinion that the more manager resembles high functioning sociopath the more efficient he is. He may even look friendly and provide benefits for the employees but that would be not because of empathy but because of calculated decision. Personally I think there is some truth to this opinion and I don't believe in the "benevolent" corporations, especially big ones.
- crispyambulance 6y ago
  I don't believe in "benevolent" corporations either, but that doesn't excuse managers from being cold-fish personalities that border on sociopathic or machiavellian. In fact, even the meanest largest corporations have excellent managers peppered throughout the organization that watch out for their people and genuinely care for them even though the corp as a whole might be a greedy SOB-- I'm thinking places like Comcast and Oracle here. ymmv.
ramblerman 6y ago
Sorry, but this just feels like you are projecting some vague management 101 platitudes that could be applicable to any organizational problem. I mean you're not wrong, but it's akin to saying if we all loved each other there would be no war. I've seen plenty of great emphatic leaders get bogged down in large corps.
- majewsky 6y ago
  FYI, you probably meant "empathetic", not "emphatic".
  - ramblerman 6y ago
    you're right, thanks!
- simonbarker87 6y ago
  Not really, during my military training a there was a focus on management vs leadership and how the two intertwine. Great leaders can be terrible managers if they don’t want to do the associated admin, fortunately management skills are much easier to teach than leadership skills. Generally the latter (such as officer training) is cultivated in people that show requisite qualities (hence the UK cultivating potential military officers from 16 like the program I was in). Neither is a given for success but the most successful people in management structure have a good mix of both to navigate. Also, I think n being empathetic doesn’t always mean being nice, it just means seeing other view points and making decisions with that extra insight. It’s a fascinating topic I think.
  - clairity 6y ago
    yes, the leader/manager dichotomy is covered in mba school too, but the core curriculum usually doesn't cover it at a level of detail to be truly actionable. you have to take elective courses for that, and most students don't. the knowledge is offered, but not emphasized, unfortunately.
jedimastert 6y ago
> Sadly the above traits are more deemed leadership qualities rather than management qualities and so often missing in management. I just might be inexperienced in corp-land, but are management roles not leadership roles on a small scale?
- simonbarker87 6y ago
  Ideally yes but you don’t need to be a good leader to fulfil the roles of management. Good leaders are in the main better managers but the percentage of the population with that leadership instinct is rare enough that it can’t really be a prerequisite for management roles.

reportgunner 6y ago

I have also personally witnessed a corporation insisting that I learn exclusively management practices in a multi-session Leadership Education and 'selling' it to me as "leadership".

disgruntledphd2 6y ago

To add to that, if you have a senior IC with leadership skills and a manager without, the senior IC won't last long, either through rage quitting or slow-walking out the door by the manager who's threatened by the senior IC.

zimbatm 6y ago

Even the best manager is faced with a bandwidth problem. It's impossible to collect accurately everything that the engineers are doing. And each layer of management is applying its own compression on what information they get from the levels below. What is frustrating when having the feet on the ground (or in the code), is that we clearly see the issues on our level. But conveying that in a understandable and nuanced manner would require too much context. IMO a good solution is to leave breathing room in the agenda and trust that the engineers will work on fixing those issues. By making them somewhat autonomous they can skip the politics and get right down to make their lives and the product a better place.

Perseids 6y ago
A complementary phrasing is to apply the subsidiarity principle ("the principle that a central authority should have a subsidiary function, performing only those tasks which cannot be performed at a more local level" – OED) to companies, which would be the antithesis of micro-management. When your boss is an enabler first and a decision maker second, they are already following a variation of that principle. I wish there was a standard way to work against the institutionalized trust issues that creep up in larger companies. E.g. when managers can only take actions if they can show an issue exists using their (arbitrary) metrics, and not when their reports directly tell them about it.
- sdoering 6y ago
  thanks. you just gave me the wording for a principle I was trying to verbalize.

Yizahi 6y ago

There is an opinion that the more manager resembles high functioning sociopath the more efficient he is. He may even look friendly and provide benefits for the employees but that would be not because of empathy but because of calculated decision. Personally I think there is some truth to this opinion and I don't believe in the "benevolent" corporations, especially big ones.

crispyambulance 6y ago
I don't believe in "benevolent" corporations either, but that doesn't excuse managers from being cold-fish personalities that border on sociopathic or machiavellian. In fact, even the meanest largest corporations have excellent managers peppered throughout the organization that watch out for their people and genuinely care for them even though the corp as a whole might be a greedy SOB-- I'm thinking places like Comcast and Oracle here. ymmv.

ramblerman 6y ago

Sorry, but this just feels like you are projecting some vague management 101 platitudes that could be applicable to any organizational problem. I mean you're not wrong, but it's akin to saying if we all loved each other there would be no war. I've seen plenty of great emphatic leaders get bogged down in large corps.

majewsky 6y ago
FYI, you probably meant "empathetic", not "emphatic".
- ramblerman 6y ago
  you're right, thanks!
simonbarker87 6y ago
Not really, during my military training a there was a focus on management vs leadership and how the two intertwine. Great leaders can be terrible managers if they don’t want to do the associated admin, fortunately management skills are much easier to teach than leadership skills. Generally the latter (such as officer training) is cultivated in people that show requisite qualities (hence the UK cultivating potential military officers from 16 like the program I was in). Neither is a given for success but the most successful people in management structure have a good mix of both to navigate. Also, I think n being empathetic doesn’t always mean being nice, it just means seeing other view points and making decisions with that extra insight. It’s a fascinating topic I think.
- clairity 6y ago
  yes, the leader/manager dichotomy is covered in mba school too, but the core curriculum usually doesn't cover it at a level of detail to be truly actionable. you have to take elective courses for that, and most students don't. the knowledge is offered, but not emphasized, unfortunately.

jedimastert 6y ago

> Sadly the above traits are more deemed leadership qualities rather than management qualities and so often missing in management. I just might be inexperienced in corp-land, but are management roles not leadership roles on a small scale?

simonbarker87 6y ago
Ideally yes but you don’t need to be a good leader to fulfil the roles of management. Good leaders are in the main better managers but the percentage of the population with that leadership instinct is rare enough that it can’t really be a prerequisite for management roles.