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That's only true if you expect managers to control the people they lead. Another approach is to empower them instead. As a manager my expectation is that each o

That's only true if you expect managers to control the people they lead. Another approach is to empower them instead. As a manager my expectation is that each of my direct reports eventually grows to be better at their job than I am at their job. My job is to make sure they have clarity on the team and organizational goals, make sure my management has visibility and confidence in our team, and create a healthy, high trust environment that allows my team members to work at their best. Again, it is my hope and desire that my reports exceed my own expertise. Additionally, management is itself a different skillset.

tsunamifury 2y ago
You likely again have never seen a true high performer and are confusing them for high output. High performers will be good enough to fundamentally question leadership decisions at an exec level and will have good reasons to. They will not just he fast at their work. They will be so good at it that it makes you almost unnecessary in the equation. High output just does the work you assign them well.
- rented_mule 2y ago
  Not who you are responding to here, but I'd put the bar for the highest level of performance significantly higher than that. Any good engineer can "fundamentally question leadership decisions at an exec level". True top performs do it and cause change to happen at that level. I've seen plenty just question and not realize how much (typically non-technical) context they are missing. I've seen multiple ICs regularly effect change at that level and be thanked personally by CEOs and CFOs in multi-billion dollar public companies. These are people who have >50% raises because of their company-changing results (one person had that kind of raise in consecutive companies). These are exceptionally high performers by any standard. I've managed multiple people like that and had them request weekly one-on-ones with me years after I retired (I gladly do it because they are amazing to talk with). I was a highly successful IC for almost 25 years, but nowhere near their level. It turns out some people can coach / manage / mentor well above their own levels. I mention all that because my style had a lot in common with who you are responding to. Nowhere did they say that their reports get 1% ahead of their own abilities and stop there - there is no ceiling. > You likely again have never seen a true high performer I'm not sure why you think you know what everyone else has experienced. Isn't it possible that your experience is less than universal?
  - tsunamifury 2y ago
    High performance experience is by definition not universal. I still doubt you’ve seen it. I’ve seen hundred million dollar retention packages. Not random engineers getting 100k more because they made a c suite happy once. Also a x billion dollar company amounts to maybe What a few hundred people. Come on you’ve not seen the major league even yet.
- jdbernard 2y ago
  > You likely again have never seen a true high performer No one has. ;) > [You] are confusing them for high output. Not really. I agree that high performance is more than just high output. When I said this: > My job is to make sure they have clarity on the team and organizational goals, make sure my management has visibility and confidence in our team, and create a healthy, high trust environment that allows my team members to work at their best. I was thinking specifically about empowering them to be effective across the management hierarchy. That's the point of creating clarity around goals: so that team members can make autonomous decisions that don't rely on me to be the arbiter of quality/truth/whatever. I'm going to describe the target, not prescribe the path. And yes, even that description of the target is open to reevaluation. Facilitating healthy communication and bringing clarity is one of the fundamental purposes of the management role, in my opinion. As an organization grows the sheer number of conversations happening becomes too much for everyone to keep track of. Managers should function as clearing houses for important communication (not bottlenecks) so that other don't have to spend all of their time doing it. But the purpose of this is to make sure that people that have the skills/context/responsibility/ability have everything at the ready. It's also why I said > [I expect they] eventually grows to be better at their job than I am at their job High-trust management is in many ways a different and orthogonal role. But you likely have never seen a truly high-trust manager. If the high-performer is "so good [..] that it makes you almost unnecessary in the equation," great! Let's promote them to Staff/Principal/Distinguished and have them report directly to the VP/C-suite, whatever.

tsunamifury 2y ago

You likely again have never seen a true high performer and are confusing them for high output. High performers will be good enough to fundamentally question leadership decisions at an exec level and will have good reasons to. They will not just he fast at their work. They will be so good at it that it makes you almost unnecessary in the equation. High output just does the work you assign them well.

rented_mule 2y ago
Not who you are responding to here, but I'd put the bar for the highest level of performance significantly higher than that. Any good engineer can "fundamentally question leadership decisions at an exec level". True top performs do it and cause change to happen at that level. I've seen plenty just question and not realize how much (typically non-technical) context they are missing. I've seen multiple ICs regularly effect change at that level and be thanked personally by CEOs and CFOs in multi-billion dollar public companies. These are people who have >50% raises because of their company-changing results (one person had that kind of raise in consecutive companies). These are exceptionally high performers by any standard. I've managed multiple people like that and had them request weekly one-on-ones with me years after I retired (I gladly do it because they are amazing to talk with). I was a highly successful IC for almost 25 years, but nowhere near their level. It turns out some people can coach / manage / mentor well above their own levels. I mention all that because my style had a lot in common with who you are responding to. Nowhere did they say that their reports get 1% ahead of their own abilities and stop there - there is no ceiling. > You likely again have never seen a true high performer I'm not sure why you think you know what everyone else has experienced. Isn't it possible that your experience is less than universal?
- tsunamifury 2y ago
  High performance experience is by definition not universal. I still doubt you’ve seen it. I’ve seen hundred million dollar retention packages. Not random engineers getting 100k more because they made a c suite happy once. Also a x billion dollar company amounts to maybe What a few hundred people. Come on you’ve not seen the major league even yet.
jdbernard 2y ago
> You likely again have never seen a true high performer No one has. ;) > [You] are confusing them for high output. Not really. I agree that high performance is more than just high output. When I said this: > My job is to make sure they have clarity on the team and organizational goals, make sure my management has visibility and confidence in our team, and create a healthy, high trust environment that allows my team members to work at their best. I was thinking specifically about empowering them to be effective across the management hierarchy. That's the point of creating clarity around goals: so that team members can make autonomous decisions that don't rely on me to be the arbiter of quality/truth/whatever. I'm going to describe the target, not prescribe the path. And yes, even that description of the target is open to reevaluation. Facilitating healthy communication and bringing clarity is one of the fundamental purposes of the management role, in my opinion. As an organization grows the sheer number of conversations happening becomes too much for everyone to keep track of. Managers should function as clearing houses for important communication (not bottlenecks) so that other don't have to spend all of their time doing it. But the purpose of this is to make sure that people that have the skills/context/responsibility/ability have everything at the ready. It's also why I said > [I expect they] eventually grows to be better at their job than I am at their job High-trust management is in many ways a different and orthogonal role. But you likely have never seen a truly high-trust manager. If the high-performer is "so good [..] that it makes you almost unnecessary in the equation," great! Let's promote them to Staff/Principal/Distinguished and have them report directly to the VP/C-suite, whatever.