4 ms·

I hate that divide also, either you are a manager (the most exalted status being a manager of managers) or you are an "individual contributor" WTF does that mea

• brazzy 14y ago
  Managers make decisions that directly affect multiple people and thus a larger part of a company (the entire company, for a CEO). Like it or not, that means that the value of a manager who makes good decisions is greater than that of an equally skilled person who does good non-managerial work. Note that this is perfectly compatible with the view of managers as faciliators - if a team of developers can't work effectively because they lack clear requirements or crucial hardware, then the manager who cuts through red tape to get them that hardware and direct access to a customer stakeholder is more valuable to the project than any of the developers. Of course the crux is that a manager who makes bad decisions is equally more damaging to a company than anyone doing bad non-managerial work, and there is good reason to doubt whether there really is a strong correspondence between the quality of people' decisions and their prospects of becoming (and being promoted as) managers.