Having been at the management level a few times, I really dislike it, not because of the interpersonal demands. In fact, I think I’m a good leader and I’m great at mentoring new people. That stuff is a lot more fun and a lot easier (for me, at least) than it’s often made out to be.
The problem, if you’re a conscientious person, is that you want to develop your team and be the great mentor/leader that you never had when you were at their level… but now you answer directly to corporate executives, and 90 percent of corporate executives are self-serving parasites who just want you to be a performance cop. You want to protect your people from upper-level emotional shit-fits, but you answer to the people who are throwing said shit-fits and who would therefore prefer it that you’re not able to protect anyone.
When you’re a middle manager, you’re constantly tested. Will you do the moral right thing, or will you do what executives want (which is almost always in direct opposition to what your subordinates want, need, and deserve) and keep your job? It sucks, and having been in that position, I now see why managers tend to go black hat after a while. The corporate system selects for those who will favor the interests of a one-party statist system over those of the people being managed (but who will simultaneously deceive the people being managed about this fact). Good managers certainly exist, but they aren’t known for longevity.
On their own, no. The genuine psychopaths are probably 20-40 percent. (They’re 2-4 percent of the general population.) The others are fairly normal people (neurologically speaking) who’ve settled in to a life of parasitism, are doing very well for themselves materially, and will do ugly things to keep their positions.
This is a pretty nice article, but if you’ve got down the basics like this, I’d really encourage you to read something like The Little Guide to Empathetic Technical Leadership. Management is so much about people, and so little about tech, in a healthy tech organization that The Little Guide has been the tool I’ve reached for when training new managers (and as a reminder to myself).
Having been at the management level a few times, I really dislike it, not because of the interpersonal demands. In fact, I think I’m a good leader and I’m great at mentoring new people. That stuff is a lot more fun and a lot easier (for me, at least) than it’s often made out to be.
The problem, if you’re a conscientious person, is that you want to develop your team and be the great mentor/leader that you never had when you were at their level… but now you answer directly to corporate executives, and 90 percent of corporate executives are self-serving parasites who just want you to be a performance cop. You want to protect your people from upper-level emotional shit-fits, but you answer to the people who are throwing said shit-fits and who would therefore prefer it that you’re not able to protect anyone.
When you’re a middle manager, you’re constantly tested. Will you do the moral right thing, or will you do what executives want (which is almost always in direct opposition to what your subordinates want, need, and deserve) and keep your job? It sucks, and having been in that position, I now see why managers tend to go black hat after a while. The corporate system selects for those who will favor the interests of a one-party statist system over those of the people being managed (but who will simultaneously deceive the people being managed about this fact). Good managers certainly exist, but they aren’t known for longevity.
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On their own, no. The genuine psychopaths are probably 20-40 percent. (They’re 2-4 percent of the general population.) The others are fairly normal people (neurologically speaking) who’ve settled in to a life of parasitism, are doing very well for themselves materially, and will do ugly things to keep their positions.
This is a pretty nice article, but if you’ve got down the basics like this, I’d really encourage you to read something like The Little Guide to Empathetic Technical Leadership. Management is so much about people, and so little about tech, in a healthy tech organization that The Little Guide has been the tool I’ve reached for when training new managers (and as a reminder to myself).