[illumin8]

I think it's because most technology managers are too disconnected from the actual work, and don't understand what their employees actually do. Obviously, there are a few examples of tech leaders that remain hands on, but it seems that when most engineers transition into leadership, after 2-3 years, they've become so disconnected from anything hands on that they are just bad.

I'll give an example: a software development manager meets with the customer directly, without bringing a developer with him, because hey, this is an executive meeting and I'm an important manager, and I want to score points with this customer. He proceeds to commit his team to delivering a solution on an unrealistic timeline, and doesn't realize that the solution he committed to deliver won't work in the customer's environment because of $various_reasons. Now, his team of poor software engineers is faced with two impossible options: attempt to deliver an impossible outcome on an impossible timeline, or give the customer bad news. Of course, the manager doesn't want to take the blame for bad outcomes (only the credit for good ones), so he makes his engineers deliver the bad news to the customer. Ultimately, the customer is unhappy, and the developers are unhappy.

Most of the bad managers I've seen spend more time "managing up" and trying to score points with their managers than helping their employees succeed. The really good managers realize that they work for their employees, not the other way around, and are a heat shield, motivator, and advocate for their team, willing to fall on their sword if necessary to protect their most junior engineers.

[zmmmmm]

I don't necessarily disagree with you but I think there is a second half to the problem. Half the managers are as you describer, but the other half are put in management positions on the basis of only technical ability and actually have no clue how to manage a team and in fact don't really care about doing that at all. Their passion is tech and will always be tech, but they are managing the team for status or career progression or whatever.

[illumin8]

Yes, you're right, I think I described the one end of the spectrum where you have someone that chose to move into a management role because they never were that good at the hands on work, and on the other end of the spectrum, you have the brilliant genius hackers that think going into management will help them advance their career, not realizing that the skills that make them 10x engineers are not going to help them even be a 0.5x manager.

[thomasmeeks]

I agree with everything you wrote, and have found that by and large companies don’t reward the good managers you described. The lack of recognition gets exhausting and eventually those good managers either leave management or start focusing on managing up for their own sake.

It has made me extraordinarily picky about any future management positions I may pick up.