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Leading someone with more years of experience than my age
- tyingq 6y agoI've been led by people much younger than me many times. The thing that helps the most is just transparency. If I know the reasons for decisions, I won't always like it, but I'll back off. Also, ask for what you really want instead of what you think will accomplish that. If the budget was cut by X dollars, work with your team on the best way to deal with that instead of choosing how to deal it with on your own.
- poulsbohemian 6y agoSounds like he did it right. Age and experience don't have to be a barrier, in fact it can work well. The young / new person likely has lots of excitement about their new role and will hustle hard to do right by their team. The more experienced person is in a position to put their expertise to work without the operational overhead of being in the coordinating role of team lead. When I was in my first management role, I was in a similar situation. One of the best compliments of my professional career was when a much older team member said that I'd helped him reinvent his career by the work I'd helped him take on. If we're all humble and honest with each other, these kinds of age / experience gaps can be good for everyone.
- entee 6y agoThis. Management is harder than many, especially junior, engineers think. The key is that you have to intrinsically want to do right by your team, sublimating your ego for the greater good of the whole. Not everyone does, and to me that’s table stakes for management, it means the person has the raw material to be a decent manager. That said it’s not sufficient. The hard part is trading off the team needs and desires versus the larger strategic imperatives. That and resolving conflicting priorities within the team. Still, “doing right by the team” is distressingly not universal, or even when present, many don’t actually know how.
- sparrish 6y agoIf you do your job, I don't care how old you are. That said, it's hard to lead well without the wisdom that years of experience brings.
- treeman79 6y agoHad a lead that was 15 years younger. I liked him. He was good at role. I ended up being his goto for advice on how to deal with others and dealing with hard situations.
- paxys 6y agoReporting to someone younger than you (even much younger) is perfectly normal, and common in the industry. Not every mid-late career engineer has management aspirations. What I don't understand is someone becoming a team lead out of the blue and directly managing multiple people with 6 months of total experience? I cannot think of any situation where someone right out of college would be a good fit for a management role.
- jiofih 6y agoApparently the author can’t either. On the other hand, the outcome showed that it doesn’t really matter for this team in particular.
- lmilcin 6y agoVery likely the guys just did the job and took care of themselves. It is not particularly rare. There are managers who don't contribute anything to actual output, coasting on ground work done by predecessors and being absentee enough to not interfere. Had he ever faced an actual crisis, change or was stuck in the position for more than brief moment, this would very likely ended differently.
- 3D25157725 6y agoTell that to the U.S. Army.
- kstrauser 6y agoI was in the US Navy, and had well more than 6 months in before they put me in charge of anyone.
- jdmichal 6y agoI've known several offices and high-ranked enlisted military members. This is what I was told: Yes, the most junior of commissioned officers fresh out of academy technically outranks the most senior non-commissioned officer that's been there for 20 years. Also, you can bet that that junior officer will get a very thorough chewing out if s/he ever disrespects the experience, commitment, and knowledge that NCO rank represents.
- notabot 6y agoI don't think being led / managed by someone younger is a big deal, but this is a weird story. The author was just 6 months into his first job then made a leader of three much more experienced employees. That makes me think someone up the chain wanted those three guys gone.
- croon 6y agoI think mainly what's wrong is our thinking of it as hierarchical. The "leadership" position should be/is a support position to help production staff perform to the best of their abilities. That could be someone less experienced as long as they're good at eliminating obstacles for their team(s) and communication.
- notabot 6y agoI agree with you in general. I just don't think a person 6 months out of college can effectively do what you describe. When I was six months into the job I certainly didn't know how the org functioned, nor did I have any political capital to move things my way.
- croon 6y agoThat I agree with. Experience is hard to shortcut.
- sgtnoodle 6y agoIt definitely helps to be familiar with an organization to actively participate in it. You can accumulate political capital independent from the management structure, though, and you can manage without playing politics. I always suggest folk to embrace and understand an existing organization's culture before attempting to effect change within it.
- Talanes 6y agoIt's usually a bad idea to try to change a process without understanding the reason behind it. It's always a bad idea to try and change it without TRYING to understand the reason behind. it.
- pmiller2 6y agoTL;DR: New team lead learns that "leadership" isn't about giving orders? I agree with the other commenter who says "Sounds like he did it right." Leadership isn't ordering people around. It's more like steering a ship in the proper direction.
- ghaff 6y agoAnd I think it's hard for a young person coming in, even a very talented one (or maybe especially one), not to go in thinking they know all the answers and creating a lot of friction. Or thinking that obviously things should be done differently. I agree that in general a lot of senior people (including myself) have no interest in managing. But my best managers have always understood to manage liqhtly.
- pmiller2 6y agoYeah, I get that. It's ironic that not knowing all the answers is the key to managing well. More specifically, not believing that you have to know all the answers. That's part of why you have people on a team.
- etempleton 6y agoI have read (somewhere) that the single most important role of a leader is to create consensus. It is not your job as a leader, ideally, to make the decision, but to facilitate your team members coming to a consensus on the best decision. Sometimes, of course, you will have to make a decision, and that is where having a strong background in the area helps out, but that is when a consensus could not be reached or some other constraint got in the way of your team coming to the best conclusion themselves. Also a Steve Jobs quote I always found informative on leadership, “You don’t hire smart people to tell them what to do; you hire smart people so that they can tell you what to do.”
- drojasug 6y agoI really liked the TL;DR, I should tweet that.
- draw_down 6y agoSometimes a manager/report relationship is not about leading or developing or teaching the report. Sometimes the best thing you can do is to be the shit umbrella. Maybe they are perfectly capable of doing your job and decided they’d rather not.
- d-sc 6y agoLeadership is about getting people from point a to point b. Generally to do that you need trust, a good idea of where point a,b are, and what the path between them looks like. Age is a component of trust, but only a small one and very dependent on the situation. If you want to be leading someone who has more experience than you, best be sure you have trust and a rock solid understanding of the path you need to be on.
- noncoml 6y ago“Leading” is such a terrible word to describe the job of most software engineering managers(at least the ones I have met in my career). If it’s done correctly, in most cases it’s just firewall/interface between the rest of the company and the engineers of the team. Dealing with upper management is not really “leading” imho. You are not leading the team unless you architect, design and code your team’s product. Are you leading a team of surgeons if you haven’t seen the inside of a surgery room since you left school?
- amelius 6y agoSuggestions for a better word?
- gabereiser 6y agoServing your team - is a better phrase for this interference running.
- cortesoft 6y agoManager?
- sharadov 6y agoYou got me thinking.. "manager" truly means someone who should be managing resources and process, smoothing out the kinks and letting his team work like a well oiled machine. Unfortunately most managers are rarely this, they thrive on micro-management and road-blocking initiatives.
- cortesoft 6y agoWhat are you basing the idea that most managers aren’t like this from? All of my managers in my 15 year career have been about managing resources and process. I have yet to have a micro-managing manager.
- pmontra 6y agoMaking things easier for the team, solving problems before they become really problems, finding the resources. These sort of things.
- DonAngel 6y agoHighly recommend this book. "The Way of the Shepherd: Seven Secrets to Managing Productive People" by Kevin Leman and William Pentak The principal's within it are highly effective and are not impacted by your age or comparitive experience.
- staunch 6y agoThe hierarchical org structure in software companies is so broken. It has all the problems of a monolithic/centralized design and very few benefits. It's copied from people that were copying military organization which makes no sense at all. The alternatives are many but pioneering new org structures is scary to most people. The cargo culting is extreme in this case. Some company that is The Next Google might have a new org structure as its defining characteristic and core advantage.
- CapricornNoble 6y ago>>>It's copied from people that were copying military organization which makes no sense at all. Do you mean "military organization makes no sense at all" or "military organization is not the correct structure for for-profit software companies"?
- staunch 6y agoI meant the latter but the former is probably true as well. It does seem telling that elite military units don't operate much like the bulk of the military does.
- CapricornNoble 6y agoThe key part of modern military organization is the utilization of specialized staff officers for planning and management.[1] Even elite units still use it at the battalion-level or above. Organization below the battalion is driven by a LOT of factors which vary across nations, but there's a reason so many countries employ a division of labor for specific functional areas for which a unit is responsible. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_(military)#Continental_staff_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Staff_(military)#Continental_s...
- noncoml 6y agoDifference in experience and age are not really relevant as the skills required to be a good Manager have little overlap with the skills required to be a good engineer. You can be a terrible soccer player but end up being an awesome coach and vice versa.
- mylons 6y agothinking you're in charge or leading someone when you're a manager is a bad mentality. you should look at yourself like an offensive coordinator on an NFL football team, and maybe not even the head offensive coordinator. You're a role player. you have a role to fill, and it's not leadership. Maybe you _will_ be a leader from this role, but it's not what it calls for.
- choeger 6y agoWhen comparing leadership that (mostly) works (in the military) to leadership that (mostly) doesn't, I notice a few fundamental differences: 1. Flat hierarchies. In SE, there are officially only very few levels between a grunt and the CEO. In the military, hierarchies are deep. You have squad leaders, platoon leaders, sometimes even more staff, company staff, and so on. That means the gradient between a leader and someone being lead is rather small. Ideally, everyone can step up to a higher position immediately (useful because of the, ahem, high fluctuation). 2. Planned career advancement. The military has always agreed that leaders (that is, officers) require special training. But that training comes after they have learned the fundamentals. In SE, most managers come from dedicated management backgrounds. If an engineer becomes manager that is considered unusual and difficult. 3. Strategic training. Officers have wargames and even colleges dedicated to improve their decision making. SE Managers have what? A few books on amazon? It's not just the how that is important in great leadership, the what should not be forgotten.
- burlesona 6y agoYour observations are interesting to me because #2 and #3 have virtually zero overlap with my life experience. #2 - working at a major tech company, there was a big emphasis on progression for each level up the engineering org, as well as the expectation that anyone (with at least say, 6 months experience at a given level) would be capable of stepping up to fill a hole at the level above them on short notice. This happened from time to time and often was an opportunity to accelerate career progression -- if you did well filling in short-term at the next level up, you'd probably get some extra training and get promoted to make that permanent in the near future. Also #2, in my 10+ year career I've never met an engineering manager (at any place I worked, or in my extended network) who got in via any path except spending >= 5 years as an engineer first. I'm aware that such managers exist, but I've never encountered one. #3 - Every place I've worked has had a management training program of some sort. Where I worked most recently, if you wanted to move into engineering management you must be a Staff Engineer and you must apply (and get a supporting recommendation from your manager) to the Apprentice Manager Program (AMP). During AMP, trainees get assigned a small team to lead, and that team is part of the training program, as they give regular feedback. The managers in training attend weekly training sessions, have homework, etc., and are getting feedback from multiple directions throughout. At the end the candidate may or may not be approved to move to the manager track - and they also have the chance to decide it's not for them and go back to the IC track with no problems. They can also apply again in a year if they fail the first time through. My understanding is this kind of stuff is pretty standard among major software companies.
- jariel 6y agoA 'project' can easily be led by a very young person, with super experienced techies. Think: bathroom/kitchen upgrade. But if it's 'direct leadership' ie the kid was to literally work on the project with them, leading the details, then it's just ridiculous. In the former case, don't even think of it as 'giving orders'. Think of it as 'setting project parameters'. The team will fill in the blanks. At 20, there's nothing you can do but trust them. You don't have the experience to know when/if they are screwing you over. You definitely won't know if they are not even aware themselves. A cynical manager might assume nefarious/lazy when none is there. A too easy-going manager might get walked over. But with 6 months experience the only thing you can do is trust them to do their jobs. Basically frame the job as 'helping them do their jobs'.
- FpUser 6y agoIf someone is more capable than yourself as the developer then do not lead. Let him/her do their part and try to learn. If you are a manager then your duty is not to lead but to facilitate development, help them organizationally and in this case your experiences are orthogonal and are not subject to comparison.
- sontek 6y agoSame thing happened to me in my first job. Turned out the old guys turned down the position and I was the only one dumb enough to do it! :)
- dboreham 6y agoThese are not the promotions you are looking for..
- treeman79 6y agoWas at one place. We went through 7 engineering directors. Finally out of desperation I took the position. Although I made it clear I didn’t want it. Yea. Left after six months in that role. Which was longer then anyone else had lasted.
- sontek 6y agoI learned why they didn't want it soon enough
- atwebb 6y agoThat was running through my head reading some of these other anecdotes "No one else wanted the position."
- KurtMueller 6y agoI wouldn't think of it as a leaders / follower relationship - it's more so a partnership / fellow colleagues relationship. I'll gladly report to younger people if their perceived nature of our relationship is more flat / equitable than it is hierarchical.
- drivebtcomment 6y agoI had a really funny exchange with some longtime former Microsoft executives. They were talking about another former colleague still at Microsoft, who was not known for being that smart or talented. “How did he last so long?” “Oh, he never became a manager.” It made me realize how lethal management is as an occupation. Enemies above, below and on all sides, who would want to sign up for that?
- pal_ankit 6y agoManagement is a function of maturity. There are kids who have just graduated from B school and with just a year or two of work experience, who are great managers. We have to remember that they have been living on the planet for 20-24 years and their experiences in life , families , sports teams etc. Define their level of EQ and maturity. So it’s not just those years of work experience that lead to great young managers - it’s life experience as well.
- mrcartmenez 6y agoIf you were confused about it, then it’s possible you were just a pawn in someone else’s game
- mr-wendel 6y agoSimilar situation for me in my 20s. It was my first real industry job and in particular was responsible for leading two people who, technically, were way beyond me and had been actively mentoring me. Lessons I learned in this specific context: 1. Sometimes you become the leader because you you can kiss ass better than others. Sometimes it's just that upper management is an ass and you're more tolerant of that. 2. I learned a lot more about leadership from my mistakes than any successes. I don't think I was cocky, but more humility would have served everyone better. 3. Have your team members' backs. Having authority sometimes means keeping problems and mistakes internal. Exposing these upward can seem like its showing your ability to find and fix things and feel like the right (even the necessary) thing to do. It might be the worst possible thing to do by destroying team moral and any respect you may have had.