> you know what the best managers are? They are the great individual contributors who never ever wanted to be a manager, but decide they have to be a manager be

> you know what the best managers are? They are the great individual contributors who never ever wanted to be a manager, but decide they have to be a manager because no one else is able to do as good job as them That's mostly not true, with occasional exceptions. The skillset to be a great manager is completely different from a great engineer, so having someone excel at both is very rare. A great manager needs (1) very good people skills to truly understand what makes each individual optimally happy and productive, and (2) the political skills to manouver within the organization in ways that allows them to make (1) happen.