[johnkchow]

The hardest part during the transition is to give up doing what you love and excel at (coding) and instead doing something foreign and way more nebulous. But every time you feel that urge to go back to writing code, you need to remind yourself that as a manager, your primary goal is to have a multiplicative effect in the organization, and that starts with not only improving your team’s productivity, but coaching each and every member on your team to have great judgement and make the right decisions that balances the technical and business needs. And to have your team make the right decisions, you as the manager need to equip them with as much business context as possible and empower them to run as fast as they can.

I highly recommend reading High Output Management by Andy Grove. It’s written decades ago for the chip business, but it’s personally one of the most impactful books and really cemented for me the ideas I’ve laid out above.

I wish you luck! It’s not an easy process, but with work it can be incredibly rewarding to see people succeed and grow under your watch.