[warcher]

The MBA is for people who want to skip right to "being in charge" without having to learn how to actually do anything first.

The scary part is, if you went to a selective enough school, it kinda works.

The Ivy League undergrad -> elite MBA -> management consulting -> C-suite pipeline is especially frightening.

[bumby]

My issue with the converse is that being a good engineer and understanding how to do things doesn't necessarily make you a good manager. I've worked in plenty of orgs where they don't treat leadership as a skill unto itself and assume just because you're a good engineer, you'll be good at managing an engineering team.

[warcher]

I think if you have to pick a base for leadership, doing the thing you're managing other people in is probably the best.

The worst in my opinion is finance-- it's like driving using the rear view mirror. No business has ever succeeded or failed because their accounting was really tip top.

[bumby]

No doubt, I just think too often leadership is looked at as an afterthought to the skill they are managing? It's akin to the Peter Principle. Just because you are a good developer does not mean your skills translate to great leadership.

People would laugh at the idea of a good leader being thrust into a SWE role based solely on their leadership skills. Yet we often think transitioning from a SWE to a leader is just picked up. I'm asserting that they are different skillsets. Will being a good developer help lead a team of SWE? Absolutely, but that alone doesn't provide the requisite knowledge and skills to perform a manager role, but we often think that's the bulk of what's necessary.