The higher you go with management, the more blunt the conversations. Things aren't sugar-coated and the questions are straight to the point. That's not necessar

The higher you go with management, the more blunt the conversations. Things aren't sugar-coated and the questions are straight to the point. That's not necessarily an accusation, but it is a clear prompt for an answer. One of the things I learned very quickly was that I was naive to assume that all developers were diligently working on their tasks with reasonable effort. At first I assumed everyone was working just like I did as an IC: Straight to work, focusing until the task is done, and enjoying the satisfaction of finishing things. Unfortunately, a surprising number of developers won't do any work unless they're constantly pressured by managers. Junior managers often need help identifying the latter and understanding how to performance manage people. It was actually surprisingly common for a new or junior manager to hire an unexpectedly underperforming employee and not have any real idea how to manage their performance. Or worse, they might hire someone who become actively toxic to the team and not understand how to deal with it. Stepping in to help performance manage, or eventually remove the problem employee, was actually very critical as it prevented all of the good performers on the team from quitting. Few things will destroy morale as quickly as a deadbeat showing up on a team and dragging everybody down with no consequences. From the employee perspective: Have you ever had a teammate who didn't pull their weight? Imagine how frustrating it is if management is clueless about the person's relative lack of performance and isn't bothering to investigate why there isn't any output. Eventually you're going to get sick of doing their work for them.