I've often found that when people complain about a manager not being attuned to interposal dynamics it's because there is an issue below the the surface of the

I've often found that when people complain about a manager not being attuned to interposal dynamics it's because there is an issue below the the surface of the team that isn't easily seen and not being communicated. As a manager, I've been in situations where something bad has happened for months that was completely outside of my view. I had absolutely no visibility. Nobody was telling me anything. The best way to manage up is to directly tell me what is going on. Sometimes people try and make little off hand jokes or passive aggressively and indirectly include a cryptic sentence in an email or a standup. "Jim and Georgia are handling the unit tests, but you know how they've been, haha..." I follow up and people will say something like "oh they've had a disagreement over types of tests" and no one will tell me there have been bitter feuds at every meeting for half a year. Jim and Georgia both say nothing, the team won't say anything, and then somebody on Hacker News says I'm incompetent and not attuned to interpersonal dynamics. ;) This isn't a specific example from experience but a hypothetical to give you some idea of what the bad manager could be working with. Delegation gets tricky too. Although I won't code or do technical individual contributor work I won't delegate other tasks because I perceive you as being busy enough already.