
Being a Manager Is Lonely - platz
http://www.ianbicking.org/blog/2015/01/being-a-manager-is-lonely.html
======
smacktoward
This post is not so much about management being lonely (though it is, at all
levels) as it is about the special loneliness of _middle_ management.

If you're a top manager, a founder or C-level type, you still have to deal
with loneliness (since the power you have over the people below you in the org
chart inevitably crimps any relationships you form with them), but you at
least get the compensating benefit of being able, to some degree, to determine
your own destiny: you make decisions, the company pivots to follow them.

Middle managers don't even get that; they're sandwiched between the people
above them, who actually get to decide what the "company line" is, and those
below them, who just have to follow it. Middle managers have to not just
follow it, but _enthusiastically agree_ with it, even if they think it's
stupid or counterproductive. (Or at least they have to do so whenever the
people they manage are watching.) Failure to do so, to participate eagerly in
whatever fad thinking the people at the top are high on this week, is what I
used to hear described when I worked on an Air Force base as "a career-
limiting maneuver."

And on top of that, they have to work in an environment where even the limited
power they _do_ have to make a difference can be thrown out the window at any
time. All it takes is for someone higher up the food chain to take an interest
in your team and suddenly all the decisions you've made start getting
overridden. Their reasons for doing so can be completely arbitrary, but that
doesn't matter. If you're lucky, the person doing the overriding is at least
generous enough not to do that to you in front of your team. If you're lucky.

This is part of the reason why the traditional career path of promoting senior
developers into middle management is so destructive. The usual critique of
that model revolves around programmers often not having the kinds of skills
and experiences that make good managers, and that's true. But it's also true
that middle management just generally sucks as a job, regardless of who you
put in it.

~~~
lemdj
The best-liked and most effective managers that I have worked with did not
always show support for the company's decisions. Instead, they would say "we
have to do this, but: (1) here is how I can make it as painless as possible
for you (2) here is how we can make sure that you still achieve your personal
objectives"

Sometimes (depending on the sensitivity of the issue) they would also tell the
team what they were doing to try and get the decision changed.

I have been fortunate to work places where the higher levels of management
welcomed dissenting opinions - maybe that is one of the key bits to look for
when determining if a (traditionally-structured) company is a good place to be
a mid-level manager.

~~~
sailfast
Agreed - I don't think that all honesty has to go out the window just because
you are in a management position. Communicating decisions is one aspect, but
effectively implementing them in your team is a whole other thing. Honest
discussion of concerns and what can be improved is important, and as much as
management likes to think their poker face is awesome, employees are smart and
see straight through bullshit.

Secondly, what I heard in your comment (and agree with) but don't see in the
original post is anything about engaging to be an advocate for your employees
up the chain, giving them an opportunity to tell you what they need, the
questions they have, the things you can do. To a certain extent this might
make you lonelier on the "who do I talk to?" side, but helps a great deal as a
reminder of the purpose of the job.

------
Htsthbjig
Learn to say "no". I have a company that I managed. In the company I was the
"boss", but my boss was our customers. You need to say no to customers often.

Before learning to say no life was miserable. After I did it was heaven. Learn
to say reasonable noes to your customers, to your upper managers, to your
partner,to your kids, and your life will be much better.

Forget the advice of that stupid blog. You should not always support upper
management, you are not a drone. If you work in the army and they tell you to
kill every civilian inside a village, you must say no.

When upper management wants to do something that is stupid and you will have
to support and be responsible for it, you should say no(after you double proof
that it is not you who is wrong).

Get a mentor you respect and admire. Create a mastermind of the best managers
you could find. You will discover management is not what you think it is(or
better said, it does not have to be that way).

------
walterbell
Leadership is lonely. There's always a boss behind the boss, even in the
C-suite. Good managers can translate in all directions of a network graph, not
merely from the nonlocal to the local.

The Manager Tools podcast gives insight into the language and thought
processes of top-down thinkers. Useful for learning how how to work within and
around such structures: [http://www.manager-
tools.com/2013/04/politics-101-chapter-3-...](http://www.manager-
tools.com/2013/04/politics-101-chapter-3-myth-just-world-part-1) &
[http://www.manager-
tools.com/2013/05/politics-101-chapter-3-...](http://www.manager-
tools.com/2013/05/politics-101-chapter-3-myth-just-world-part-2) . This should
be balanced by authors like Tim Ferris, Chris Malburg
([http://www.amazon.com/How-Fire-Boss-Chris-
Malburg/dp/0425127...](http://www.amazon.com/How-Fire-Boss-Chris-
Malburg/dp/0425127346)), or your favorite historical barbarian.

There's a Heinz von Foerster essay on free will within deterministic systems,
_" Only those questions that are in principle undecidable, we can decide. Why?
Simply because the decidable questions are already decided by the choice of
the framework in which they are asked, and by the choice of rules of how to
connect what we call "the question" with what we may take for an "answer.""_,
[http://web.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/foerster.html](http://web.stanford.edu/group/SHR/4-2/text/foerster.html)
& [http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-
park](http://kiriakakis.net/comics/mused/a-day-at-the-park)

Complex bureacracies (academia, airlines, government, large enterprises)
illustrate that thinking humans are most valuable at the boundary of system
determinism. Any human who just does what the "rules" or "book" or "computer"
says, will eventually be replaced by a mindless algorithm/app. But airline
customer service people in First Class, or executive assistants who have
worked with the same CEO for decades, or great managers - define human free
will and agency, with their decision-making capacity for handling the entropy
of "irregular operations".

If we view large organizations as semi-deterministic programs for which we
have lost the source code, how would that change our view of management?

------
seasoup
As a middle manager there will be some decisions that are yours to make, the
higher you go in middle management, the more of these decisions there will be.
An important part of your job is knowing which of these decisions is yours to
make and not criticize people above you in the hierarchy for making decisions
that they can make. Sure, push back a little before the decision is made to
influence it, but once it's made you do have to back it. The key for me was to
not focus on things I thought were wrong, but focus instead on the good parts
of the decision. If there are no good parts of the decision and it happens too
many times, may be time to move on.

------
ChuckMcM
You need a mentor. Someone who is also a manager, you can trust implicitly,
and you can talk to about your thoughts without it "getting back" to the
people.

------
ia
totally agree. i think it's why many many many tech managers aren't technical.
most truly technical people cannot put up with the cognitive dissonance
required to convincingly say one thing while believing the opposite.

------
sheepmullet
"But their advice is clear: if you are asked your opinion, you must agree with
the decision, maybe stoically, but you must agree, not just concede. You must
speak for the company, not for yourself."

And this is why middle management is next to useless and why there have been
so many cuts over the last 20 years. If you aren't honest with your direct
reports then you will be seen as untrustworthy and/or clueless. Either way I'm
certainly not going to feel inclined to be honest and straightforward with
you.

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drderidder
I don't like the manager / developer separation. I've had better results using
lightweight strategies to let projects be more or less self-managing.
Basically just creating a shared vision, giving responsibilities to people,
letting them set their own goals, and then publishing to the group how those
goals are progressing on a weekly basis. It doesn't take much time and people
usually appreciate the communication.

------
Spooky23
There's way too much black and white in the blog post and these comments here.
It's more art than science.

The reality is as a manager you're an influencer and leader. You also need to
have personal integrity or you'll just end up depressed. If you have no
ability to influence upper management, you need to work on how to connect with
your boss.

