What It Means To Be An Exceptional Manager
What can you learn from others to become an exceptional engineering manager, and what core values set you apart from the rest of the world?
Story
Being a manager is like fighting a 100-year-old stereotype that managers are evil and don't trust them by default. My manager told me this whenever I felt bad for being unable to solve a human problem.
Some people you meet during a career either help you grow or make your life a disaster. I am writing this story to thank a manager who taught me more than any book, more than any family member, or a course you can buy for only $999 and become a manager overnight.
As someone coming from a software world, where input is usually equal to output, and things are straightforward, becoming manager at first was the worst and the best decision I ever made.
I was making the same money, but the issues I was dealing with were beyond a bug fixing or a new feature request. Suddenly, I had to solve human problems — and humans are bundles of ego, emotions, and joy.
By default, I love to see everyone around me happy and cheerful, which is a lousy mentality if you want to manage and lead people. You can't please and make everyone happy, but you can support and be there for your people.
However, step by step, I picked up the most important parts, documented them, and observed what my manager did when things were going well and when things were going down.
“Your life quality is as good as your manager is.”
Understanding Your People
Understanding the people you manage, their habits, hobbies, and how they work is essential to becoming an exceptional manager.
You need to be able to put together different characters and steer them in the right direction. To do that, you need to understand deeply each of them, and that can only be done with 1:1 meetings.
Understanding your people means understanding what they want to become in life. Some want to become better engineers, others don't, and that's fine. As people go through different aging phases, their priorities shift, and you're the one to understand this and support their path.
1:1 Meetings
Never skip a 1:1 meeting, as this is the only moment to meet and pick up someone's brain — 1:1 is a place to meet your peers and bond with them.
Never start them straight with business, and try to use an introduction to ask how they feel and how their week was, rather than going into business first.
It's OK to spend this meeting talking about feelings. Sometimes, humans are going through a challenging period, and you need to be there and support them rather than talk about your following team goals.
Trust & Micromanage
You always start a relationship with trust! If you need to micromanage someone too often, that usually means the person is not fit for a role.
There are rare times when micromanaging is okay, but if this is a regular part of your job, you are doing something wrong.
Trust can be broken in a second, so always remember that.
Take Responsibility & Never Blame Others
When things go wrong (and they will 100%), never blame others and always be the first to take the blame and responsibility. This way, you will gain trust in a team, and people will feel safe around you.
Everyone makes a mistake, and our job as managers is to avoid repeating mistakes. Doing a post-mortem after mistakes are done is the best thing you can do to make sure things don't fall again the same way they did before.
I had a case when a junior developer almost broke the whole company by adding the correct code at the wrong time. I was the one who assigned him this task, and I was the one to blame and take responsibility.
Later on, we had a post-mortem meeting and found a way never to make a similar error again. Usually, when things go down, this is the best time for learning opportunities, and don't waste it by putting things below the carpet.
Solving Conflicts
The first human conflict I had to solve left me sleepless for nights as I wasn't sure why two people didn't like working with each other while both of them were hardworking and good people in the first place.
If you're becoming an engineering manager, solving human issues is the most challenging part of your new job.
After days of chaos in my head, I asked my manager how to approach this problem. He said, "Put them in the same room and let them talk to each other."
The first two minutes of this meeting were the worst gut feeling and pure awkwardness. But guess what? After spending half an hour together, they concluded, solved issues together, and became excellent friends and colleagues even to this day.
After some time had passed, I realized that as a manager, you don't need to be a bridge between two people and their problems. Putting them in the same room is already one step towards solving an issue.
“You control the inputs, not the human outputs.”
Humans Over Technology
If humans grow, technology will evolve. There is no single good-performing team with good developers who don't have significant interaction, don't bond, or hate working together.
You should never jeopardize development but always put your people before technology.
When people make mistakes or things go wrong, be there for them and support them. Our job is more than just building an app; it's about creating an environment where everyone will grow and learn.
If people grow, technology will follow their growth.
I learned many other things from having an exceptional manager; one article isn't enough to thank you.
I hope our paths will cross again, and I promise to keep your legacy and help others the way you helped me to become a better human and a leader.
Thank you, Michael!
