[perl4ever]

Being a manager is about being loyal to the company and not individuals. It pays more precisely because it causes pain to peoples' consciences to put an abstraction above fellow employees.

Talking about a CEO catching bullets in their teeth is ridiculously inflated language. Why use such imagery? Because the mission of a typical company does not sufficiently compensate for the guilt produced by putting the organization ahead of individuals.

[scaryclam]

I usually think of the managerial responsibilities to be in this order:

- Company, because without it there's no employees - The team you're managing, because teams are more than just a single person - The individuals in the team, since they're the one's that can make a team better

It seriously sucks to have to think of things in that order sometimes. I've never been involved in firing a person I didn't like.

Though, when it comes down to it it's not fair for the team to suffer because of an individual, no matter how much they are liked, and it's not fair for all of the teams to suffer because one of them can't cut it.

That's not to say there's no wiggle room though. I'll fight tooth and nail for an employee or team if I think it's a management fault that they've not performed (especially if I'm the manager screwing up) and will try to take a long term view of their value, not just the next quarter.

Of course, all of this could be making me a bad manager. I've been put into managing people by virtue of being technically strong, not being a great people herder. I really do wish companies would spend as much time mentoring and helping managers get better at hands on managing as they do other tasks.

[unabst]

No.

Putting the organization ahead of individuals isn't what's happening. The individuals ARE the organization.

So if you put yourself ahead of the organization, you're putting everyone else behind you, including your boss. This is a challenge for millennials especially, who are used to always being put first, and having their emotions managed.

A good manager doesn't put themselves before their boss or anyone else. How often do you hear of programmers who enter management to hardly touch code again? A good manager puts the organization first, both above and below their pay grade.

But their performance also depends on the people they manage. If a worker is incompetent, they have every right to be hard on those mistakes. And the worker is fully responsible for setting things right. Work is not homework that gets handed back to you after its graded. It's something needed by someone else that needs it for something important. And nothing is redundant in a tightly run business.

When I think of Melissa Mayers, I think of bullets. Despite whether anyone agrees with "her" moves (which were clearly backed by her counsel), she was doing everything she could to increase market share and rebuild a failing business. She took on all the risk, and becomes target practice for those who despise her failures. When was the last time you were bashed on HN? And she does this so that everyone at Yahoo has a job. She is fighting for YOU.

Regardless of my word choice, to borrow your words, the CEO is a ridiculously inflated position.

[perl4ever]

You assert that "a good manager puts the organization first", but first does not mean "ahead of individuals". So what is it ahead of, if not individual interests?

[balls187]

> Being a manager is about being loyal to the company and not individuals.

That's not true at all.

Being a manager requires you to balance both the needs of individuals with the needs of the company.

Being a good manager means you can correctly handle when those two needs come into conflict.

[perl4ever]

I don't see why you disagree. Beyond asserting that my statement isn't true, you seem to be merely paraphrasing what I wrote in a more euphemistic way.

My former boss was laid off because he didn't "correctly" handle the conflict we're talking about. I think we're in agreement about what correctly means - being loyal to the company, or people who have power over you, rather than your subordinates.