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by kevin_nisbet
1277 days ago
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My experience has been similar, I think it depends way more on the individual than whether they are technical or non-technical. I do suspect those with non-technical backgrounds are at a disadvantage though. When I started my career I had a manager who couldn't even type, but just approached his role as I want to keep an eye on what's going on, and when I see friction or blockers I'll jump in and start working on removing those blockers. I've seen a technical manager get promoted, from IC to VP of engineering within just a couple of years, and treat the VP role as his job is to tell everyone in his employ what to do, no feedback allowed (didn't treat those in his employ with trust as you put it). I don't know that I've ever seen a worse leader and had a litany of problems with them, and ended up deciding to leave within weeks of this person taking over. I don't even know if it's this persons fault, as the org didn't like hiring leaders externally, so basically the entire engineering org was just ICs with basically no leadership experience. |
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yep, exactly.
I think your anecdote about the engineer turned VP is fairly typical. imo it's generally more difficult for engineers to become _good_ leaders because it means moving from an environment where you have complete control to one where you don't and a lot of engineers can't bridge that divide successfully and become terrors like you described.
non-technical managers never had that control. They have their own challenges, but generally speaking, it's easier for them in terms of control.
in my opinion, of course.