> My answer is that you have middle management who is made responsible for the output of the high performers, but they don't and can't truly control them - other than via micromanaging.
Agree. This is all anecdotal:
IMO - the people who get promoted to management in technical roles often don't have the people skills to perform the job well. I have had leadership thrust upon me multiple times in my career and it's very difficult. You're constantly balancing autonomy vs. active management for each person, in each role, for each unique situation. You're sussing out people's strengths and weaknesses working to help highly competent/technical people progress in their career. You're actively working to keep people on the same page, and sometimes you're working against your own contentious team members.
I rail hard against non-technical management managing a technical role - it just doesn't work. So, typically, technical people get thrown into management roles and I think we often suck at it. We don't take the time to work on ourselves to have the people skills required to be a positive leader of people. Then we compensate like any other crappy manager: we micromanage (crack the whip), we keep people in the dark ("mushroom management"), we DARVO, we have angry emotional outbursts, we pick favorites, etc.
What we see in software (and other technical roles) is that most people picked for management never put the work in to be an effective leader of people. And, I think the very nature of our work precludes many of us from developing the social skills it takes.
>I rail hard against non-technical management managing a technical role - it just doesn't work. So, typically, technical people get thrown into management roles and I think we often suck at it.
I think this is just an outcome of the reality that it's extremely rare for someone to be highly competent in people management, business, and tech. Such a person can work anywhere, and ask for any amount of money. Back in the real world, candidates will usually have certain strengths. Good companies attempt to train up said weaknesses, but oftentimes people are just not good at certain things.
I used to be on your side re non-tech managing tech, but I am now much more pragmatic. People management skills are very difficult, and I don't believe a people manager needs to be as technically skilled as their employees. Quite the opposite: the employees are there because of the skills they can bring to the team. The critical component here is ensuring the people manager is actually good. That means providing autonomy where appropriate, and structure where necessary.
> What we see in software (and other technical roles) is that most people picked for management
i think instead of being picked, it's more that the management track is the only real way to gain higher compensation. There's a glass ceiling for IC (individual contributors) in terms of compensation - sure there will be the occasional principal developer (or some such like "architect"), but even then, those roles tend to turn into a managing role; you're herding other people and writing proposals and to convince upper management that such and such ideas for the product or system is good.
If such a person was just given the authority to dictate - or is working alone - they'd just _do_ it. They'd be able to accomplish far more in the same amount of time (provided they do have the skill and execution chops). But that's exactly what a high-performing person _is_!
Unfortunately, even if such a role was created and the person given the space, the compensation is not matching unless said person had equity holdings (such as being a technical founder). So to reach a level of compensation commensurate with such skills and capability, you end up needing to become part of the management - paradoxically removing the use of the very skill that would make you worthy of such compensation!
Agree. This is all anecdotal:
IMO - the people who get promoted to management in technical roles often don't have the people skills to perform the job well. I have had leadership thrust upon me multiple times in my career and it's very difficult. You're constantly balancing autonomy vs. active management for each person, in each role, for each unique situation. You're sussing out people's strengths and weaknesses working to help highly competent/technical people progress in their career. You're actively working to keep people on the same page, and sometimes you're working against your own contentious team members.
I rail hard against non-technical management managing a technical role - it just doesn't work. So, typically, technical people get thrown into management roles and I think we often suck at it. We don't take the time to work on ourselves to have the people skills required to be a positive leader of people. Then we compensate like any other crappy manager: we micromanage (crack the whip), we keep people in the dark ("mushroom management"), we DARVO, we have angry emotional outbursts, we pick favorites, etc.
What we see in software (and other technical roles) is that most people picked for management never put the work in to be an effective leader of people. And, I think the very nature of our work precludes many of us from developing the social skills it takes.