I believe there is a lot of confusion in the debate between programmers and "the business" on what is actually needed from software manager role. Sometimes the

I believe there is a lot of confusion in the debate between programmers and "the business" on what is actually needed from software manager role. Sometimes there is need for efficiency and the programmer promoted to manager role will excel as they have devoted their past life to optimization and efficiency anyway. Other times, there is a need for engineering excellence (-> best practices -> complexity -> over engineering -> bloat). If that's the case you better promote your worst engineer to the manager role. It is really that simple, but most will fail to see it.