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IMO the best of any kind is one that designs themselves out of the hot path. What does that mean for leaders? Don't _be_ the conduit to good communication, inst
by maerF0x0 6y ago
IMO the best of any kind is one that designs themselves out of the hot path. What does that mean for leaders? Don't _be_ the conduit to good communication, instead tend to it like something external to you. Processes and tooling are like code for businesses and can be updated over time to fix the bugs.
- dcolkitt 6y agoI think this is definitely true. But the biggest reason it's rare in practice is because middle managers who aren't viewed as essential to day-to-day operations are likely to be made redundant by senior leadership. Managers bias towards taking an overly hands-on, interventionist style, because that creates a lot more visible signals that they're not easily replaced. There's no incentive to build a well designed process that the team's empowers self-driven success. As often happens to programmers, that type of manager often finds that he's engineered himself out of a job. Much better to create busywork, lest senior executives start asking "what exactly would you say you do here". What often separates out great senior leadership is recognizing the pernicious influence of this bias. John D Rockefeller was famous for having tons of middle managers who barely worked at all, took naps in the afternoon, and the like.
- bfuclusion 6y agoI mean that works if all you want is to rise to middle management. When you start having actual revenue or project goals then that method falls apart.