[icyfenix]

This is exactly the sentiment I was going for - people who want to stay engineers should be compensated for their badassery, and respected for it, which is usually all they want. That right there is exactly the "power to say No" I was talking about. And how do you know if an engineer wants to stay an engineer or not? By asking them.

[dmfdmf]

I don't want to disparage the whole management class but I think part of it is that manager types don't really get the motivation to solve problems. They think that if someone doesn't have a manager telling them what to do then they won't do anything, but that is just psychological projection. Fred was one of the happiest (and busiest) guys at this company and many strived to achieve his status.

Regarding respect; After this meeting technical colleagues praised me for bringing Fred in to get the problem resolved. Manager types praised ME for resolving the conflict. It was really a big deal and really advanced my career and Fred was happy to let me get the credit which is why he made me do the presentation but he got respect from the people "in the know" and that is all he really cared about.

[choppaface]

(pure) managers don't attempt to solve technical problems because such action usually obstructs individual contributors. What's apparent here is the substantial difference in perspective between managers and ICs. Managers tend to see social equilibria and the network effects of tech problems. ICs can see much, much more deeply into specific (and usually key) aspects of tech problems. A lot of classic conflicts arise when ICs-turned-managers overestimate the depth and completeness of their comprehension and try to lead the technical effort rather than compliment it. Hence a lot of managers are 'uninterested in problems.'

[curun1r]

> They think that if someone doesn't have a manager telling them what to do then they won't do anything

As someone who has moved from being an IC to being a manager, I can assure you that's not true. What we do think is that an engineer won't necessarily work on the right things. Engineers have a tendency to work on something until they've solved it, which isn't the same things as finishing it. This is why personal projects usually end up being unfinished and unpolished. Engineers also sometimes let the perfect become the enemy of the good. The oft-cited Malcolm in the Middle episode (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHpJFROEOmg) illustrates this well.

As a manager, I don't see it as my job to keep my team busy or even productive...they do that on their own. I see it as my job to keep them focused, particularly on the tasks that will provide the most benefit for the business.

[Roboprog]

"Focus"

http://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=1503

Courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Deepness_in_the_Sky

Looking forward to that Vice-Podmaster promotion? :-)

You should note that the phrasing of your concerns probably strikes a certain amount of dread in some of your underlings.

[fsloth]

I don't think you are talking about the introspective capabilities of a whole class of employees (managers) but rather describe the percieved dynamic of an employee-manager relationship in a particular company culture.

Lots of industrial management theory offer this strategy oriented top-down command and control structure as the ideal dynamic for a BigOrg but my personal view is that it is the one that is most easy to describe academically and is probably best (best application for model, not the best model for...) for doing scalable things in a technologically fairly static setting.

If the company is structured around this top-down command tree then I imagine it's not as much necessarily about how the manager internally models peoples motivations but rather about the management culture of his colleagues and superiors within which he works.

[fit2rule]

This is the problem: manager types

There is no such thing, it is an absurd invention.

There is management - when that occurs, and only after, do you have a manager.

[enraged_camel]

>>This is the problem: manager types >>There is no such thing, it is an absurd invention.

Of course there is. Management as a career track attracts certain types of people, just like engineering. Every manager is different but they share a lot of common traits. Hence, "manager types."

[fit2rule]

These 'types' exist only to allow academia administrivia to be more open for profit. There is not such a thing as a 'manager type of personality', or 'a tech type' - this is an invention, utterly arbitrary, and a product of a corrupt education system that allows such a mythos to occur in order to cater to industrialization of human economy.

[thisGuysAccount]

There might well not be a "managerial archetype".

Each company will have desired traits in their managers, whether they go for the servant leader or the authoritarian delegator, their desired traits will limit who they view as suitable for managerial positions. There will be "manager types," and to people who have worked for that company for 10, 15, 20 years, that is the "manager type" for all companies, in their view.

There are also some traits that _are_ required for managerial work, certainly not enough to define a personality type, but without them, people could not function in a delegating, influencing, or persuading position. They're the traits that allow people to perform those functions.

I'd certainly be willing to concede the point that those aren't even personality traits, but skillful applications of personality that could be developed.

TLDR: I agree with you, but there's enough nuance in what "types" could mean that you're looking at a discussion about very subtle things that many people might not consider at first.

[fit2rule]

At the base of typecasting/stereotyping is prejudice. If you prejudge someone as being 'a manager type' before they've done any actual, you know, management - then you are prejudicial in your approach. Just because someone doesn't wear a tie and conform to social normatives, does not mean they cannot do things "typically associated with" socially-constructed norms, or 'types'. This is the biggest problem with manager-culture today: that bigotry and prejudice is still very much a factor in human interaction.