[arambhashura]

Just wanted to second your comment. I’m continually surprised at the number of individual contributors who (1) expect their manager to be perfect even though (s)he’s a human; (2) expect immediate gratification of their needs; (3) are only too happy to push all decision-making to the manager; (4) don’t realize that the mgr can be having a bad day; (5) compare their mgr to a friend’s mgr without comparing the job conditions; etc (not that a manager shouldn’t strive towards perfection).

OTOH, I’m also surprised by the number of managers who (1) implement something because “my friend at <massively successful co> uses <tool/process etc>; (2) don’t understand that their colleagues have lives outside work; (3) don’t realize that they’re being partial to some folks; (4) take advantage of the “meek” contributors; (5) don’t protect their team from upper mgmt when needed; (6) don’t do the grunt work when needed (and it’s always needed) etc.

In other words, just like any relationship, as you say.