> I am just trying to collect the things and practices that a manager should not be doing
Be careful collecting opinions from the open internet. It’s important to consider the employee perspective and to work in the best interests of your team, but it’s also important to remember that being a manager some times means doing unpopular things.
For example, if employees tell you they hate meetings, deadlines, issue trackers, and 1:1s, you can try to work with them to improve their experience and iron out specific pain points. However, that doesn’t mean you should stop doing 1:1s or have an issue tracker.
I think the takeaway is to have clear agendas for 1:1s and meetings. I have been a "manager" and I realize how easy it is to waste people's times. Especially since YOU, the manager, is responsible for having these meetings, so you feel pressured to have them, yet you don't always have content. The solution is to have content or cancel the meeting.
This is back to the whole "don't just go through the motions" argument.
This is made worse when you have architectural responsibilities, a team, 3 other devs to "manage", and 5 mentees. It's impossible to be a good manager then, since you just don't have time to care, but it's a very typical situation.
^ I have encountered the above most frequently before, aka "absentee leadership". Basically, managers who don't do anything at all.
Then the above coupled w/ micro-managing, to the point of sitting behind the team and watching their screens (as evidenced by randomly incorrectly noting "you forgot an if statement there), logging bathroom breaks (hilarious because it happened in an IT org full of senior devs), solving petty personal problems through management power (thankfully not directed at me, but very obvious).
Also, useless meetings.
In combination with absentee leadership, PRETENDING to do something by having a 2hr meeting with the team, to give a 15 minute brief pretending to be on top of the situation.
I remember the time I was working at a job shop and was expected to log 100% of my time to clients with 15 minute granularity.
I felt a little guilty about taking bathroom breaks until I realized that going to the bathroom was absolutely essential for me to do the work for the client.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 24.4 ms ] threadBe careful collecting opinions from the open internet. It’s important to consider the employee perspective and to work in the best interests of your team, but it’s also important to remember that being a manager some times means doing unpopular things.
For example, if employees tell you they hate meetings, deadlines, issue trackers, and 1:1s, you can try to work with them to improve their experience and iron out specific pain points. However, that doesn’t mean you should stop doing 1:1s or have an issue tracker.
This is back to the whole "don't just go through the motions" argument.
This is made worse when you have architectural responsibilities, a team, 3 other devs to "manage", and 5 mentees. It's impossible to be a good manager then, since you just don't have time to care, but it's a very typical situation.
^ I have encountered the above most frequently before, aka "absentee leadership". Basically, managers who don't do anything at all.
Then the above coupled w/ micro-managing, to the point of sitting behind the team and watching their screens (as evidenced by randomly incorrectly noting "you forgot an if statement there), logging bathroom breaks (hilarious because it happened in an IT org full of senior devs), solving petty personal problems through management power (thankfully not directed at me, but very obvious).
Also, useless meetings.
In combination with absentee leadership, PRETENDING to do something by having a 2hr meeting with the team, to give a 15 minute brief pretending to be on top of the situation.
I felt a little guilty about taking bathroom breaks until I realized that going to the bathroom was absolutely essential for me to do the work for the client.