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I’ve had good managers and bad managers. As an IC, a good manager will shield you from the chaos, infighting, changing priorities and ever shifting timelines.
by maccard 3y ago
I’ve had good managers and bad managers.
As an IC, a good manager will shield you from the chaos, infighting, changing priorities and ever shifting timelines. They will ensure that you are aware of what’s going on, and have enough clarity to be able to proceed.
A bad manager will most likely try to help by exposing you to all of the above, and cause you get caught up in all of the confusion that comes with it.
Just one example.
- danielscrubs 3y agoTo piggy back on it. A good manager will shield you from other bad managers and outsourcing firms promising the moon. Quite a sad state of affairs.
- maccard 3y agoI think it’s important to say that they also protect from rogue/drive by superstar IC’s. The ones who will come along and “fix” your problem, leaving a mess that nobody understands behind them that makes them look competent and your team incompetent, when in reality they’ve just half assed the job. I’ve seen managers stand up for their teams and defend against those guys successfully.
- rgblambda 3y agoIt really reveals how clueless some managers are when they sing praises of the "rockstar" IC who from day 1 trash talked their coworkers and broke everything they touched before leaving after a few months to do the same somewhere else. It shows how managers often just base their opinions on vibes given in meetings and don't care to understand anything they're managing.
- maccard 3y agoYou can replace managers with ICs, QA, product owners, Executives, anyone really. It’s not a trait inherent to managers.