Vision, Leadership and Management
I’ve seen this now many times — many engineers, as they grow in their career, at some point will want to become managers.
It’s one way to gain more responsibility, have more impact, make more money and advance your career. A healthy engineering organization has a growth path for people that do not want to become managers, but right now I want to talk about managers.
It’s well documented, and talked about — good engineer don’t necessarily make good people managers unless they are good at, you know, people management.
But I haven’t heard as much discussion about whether people managers need to also be good engineers in order to be effective. And when I ask other CTOs, I will often hear “you’re looking for unicorns if you are looking for a manager that is good technically”.
Leadership is the act of taking a group of people from Point A to Point B. Having a vision is knowing what Point B is. Being a good manager is knowing how to take people there.
With that in mind, there are four combinations that I see arise:
1. Somebody that has clarity on both a vision, and knows how to manage people. These are the effective leaders.
They’ve demonstrated that they are a good engineer, and also possess empathy for others.
They understand where point B is, they can describe it, they can spot it in others.
Maybe in the beginning they don’t know what “good management” is, but they learn it.
I want to work with them, for them, next to them.
2. A great engineer with poor management skills, put in a position to manage people. They can describe what good is, can see when people are there or not, but has no idea how to take them there.
People reporting to them will know where they should be, but have no support to get them there—quickest way to burn out a team.
Best case the manager is largely absent. Worst case, a bad manager will actively damage your ability to get there by being a command and control leader, giving you poor feedback, or worse.
You can learn what “good” is from them, but they will stress out the team. If they learn how to manage, they can become effective leaders.
3.A people manager with no vision of where to take people. They take people anywhere and nowhere. Their teams build “stuff” — sometimes good, sometimes not.
If you are not a good engineer, or a good enough engineer to recognize great engineers, how will you be able to coach others on how to be good engineers?
Empowerment, delegation, coaching — to do what? What are you managing towards?
Worst case you learn bad habits from such a manager — if they think they know what they are doing.
Best case they are all about empowerment, you’re given freedom to do stuff, but it’s unclear whether what you’re doing is best in class or not.
Best path for them is to focus on learning what “good” is.
4. I’m not even going to cover the No Vision / No Management Skills side. Focus on becoming a good engineer first. Then we can talk.
The bar for becoming a manager is high —and that’s okay, technology is one of the few fields where you don’t have to become a manager in order to advance your career.
I believe strongly that Engineering Managers have to be both good people managers AND good engineers.
It is my job to help people either become effective leaders, or effective Individual Contributors — and honestly for very selfish reasons — I believe that people reaching their full potential will build amazing things, and I love building amazing things.
And if you share this philosophy, Stellar Health is hiring.
