Re: OT: Dark Side of Management

From: <Christopher>
Date: Sat Mar 24 2007 - 13:58:00 EDT

On Mar 24, 2007, at 3:03 AM, Paul Bowers wrote:

> Part of this is that they are don't trust others to do it
> "right" or they are afraid of losing their technical skills. The new
> techie manager never really gives him/her self over to the dark
> side of
> management."

I'll quibble with this and say you have it backwards. The manager who can't trust his staff to do the work is going to have serious morale problems and will probably never be a good manager. The guts of management is delegating work. A good technical manager has to understand the requirements of the work and know the limits and skills of the people working for him so he can grant enough autonomy that he isn't constantly stewing over details. The real dark side of technical management is the compulsion to look over people's shoulders.

Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant at <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=UsAF0FdPLrk-Vu4ADtkIiWhmXHt3sosEmt4Hzd0xvfWK-P-bGppwVb3ChlcKZEEmI4qIGuNPtnqx">chrisw@skypoint.com</a> | this distance" (last words of Gen.

.......................................| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania

1864)
<a href="http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw/">http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw/</a> Received on Sat Mar 24 13:58:00 2007