[stayjin]

Last year I've been working on an unconventional idea of mine: After a project at which I was the project manager, I get into a project managed by someone else, as a team member. This has several advantages: -It gives me perspective: manager is a function, not a position or a personality obsession. -I get to see things from the other side regularly: sometimes I find that in the previous project I was managing I have been unreasonable. -I lead by example: people become very motivated when they see me coding or testing ( as a bonus, I get to keep my coding skills sharp :-)

Of course, this is Japan and one can still get the credit for doing work behind the scene but I think it is an interesting idea to hack the "soft boss-hard boss" paradigm