A good manager gets in a fight with their superior(s) if their superior happens to be wrong. A bad manager will avoid conflict with their superior, nod too unrealistic demands and then badmouth the superior with their team. A catastrophic manager will actively push unrealistic plans towards their superior.

For me the main difference between a good and a bad manager is that the good manager is interested in delivering good work in a sustainable way that improves the team, while bad managers are interested primarily in looking good while burning resources and bridges for fast victories.

If you think what it takes to for example write a legendarily good piece of software, while building a team that is top class among other comparable teams, the surest way to not reach that is to cower in front of superiors and play both sides. If anything it requires a lot of resilience, patience, diplomacy, persistence and the backbone to defend ones ideals, projects and subordinates.

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hluska 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

People get fired doing this. If you’re in a position where you can be fired maybe that’s okay. But you have no way of knowing what your team is getting next. They can all be next out the door if you play this hand wrong.

The writer did a very poor job of explaining how to do this. I question how much experience they have writing. But actual diplomacy is necessary in systems like this.

	▲	atoav 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Of course diplomacy is key. But even if you're talking to a CEO there is value in being diplomatically truthful. Even a CEO can't bend physics for example. If they want you to make you transmit information between two sites faster then the limit is still light speed no matter who asks or how great your team is. Other situations are often a bit more flexible, e.g. how long a team will take to do a thing, but also not infinitely flexible. If you know at the best time it took your team 5 days to do a thing, but usually it takes 8, then promising your CEO to do it 2 is both ridiculous and a lie. Telling them that the best you ever did when all the stars aligned was 5 days, and then telling them how the company could help to make the stars align even better is probably the better route.

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scott_w 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> A good manager gets in a fight with their superior(s) if their superior happens to be wrong. A bad manager will avoid conflict with their superior, nod too unrealistic demands and then badmouth the superior with their team. A catastrophic manager will actively push unrealistic plans towards their superior.

You've put forward a false dichotomy between punching my manager in the face and nodding along silently to everything I'm told. Frankly, both will get me fired pretty quickly.

Business don't work on managers fighting to the death on every decision we think is right. They work on managers pushing back where we think something isn't correct. If my manager disagrees, it's his job to override me and say "I hear your concerns. Do it anyway." That can happen for many reasons, some good and some bad. At that point, however, my role as a manager is to disagree, accept the decision and do my best. Or look for another job.

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atoav 2 days ago | parent [-]

> You've put forward a false dichotomy between punching my manager in the face and nodding along silently to everything I'm told. Frankly, both will get me fired pretty quickly.

No I did not. I characterized a certain type of person by how they would act at the extremes. Naturally most day to day decisions are not taking part at those extremes. Also these being a false dichotomy would mean you can somehow both nod along and tell them they are wrong at the same time. Nodding along implies you are not telling them they are wrong, which means they are mutally exclusive types of behavior, or: a dichtomy.

If I read you favourably you probably thought I meant people literally just have those two extreme options, while obviously there are many shades inbetween. But I did not claim there were no such shades.

Why did you turn what I said into "punch them in the face"? Because my original statement wasn't that easy to attack?

> It's his job to override me and say "I hear your concerns. Do it anyway."

Contrary to your perception everything I said is in perfect alignment with this statement. I didn't even talk about outcomes, only about behaviors and only behaviours by the manager.

If a superior asks a manager if a thing can be done in two days although the manager knows their team can at best do it in six, assuming your superior wants to know the truth and telling them: "the fastest we ever did this was six days and that was already problematic" isn't what you called punching them in the face it is simply a statement of fact. If the manager is good they then add a: "We can try to do it in 5, if Greg and Linda from Design are 100% on the project and my team is lifted from all other day to day responsibilities for that duration. Afterwards they probably need a day off."

The superior obviously has many options to go forward, but this is offering a realistic step towards their direction, states what is needed to make it possible and gives a realistic feeling about how possible it is. But what if the manager had not said the truth but (trying to please the superior) promised impossible things? That way the superiors choice suddenly involves more risk than they might be aware of. And bad managers consistently choose the latter as they are more concerned with their appearance than with the result of the work.

	▲	scott_w 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		>> A good manager gets in a fight with their superior(s) if their superior happens to be wrong. A bad manager will avoid conflict with their superior, nod too unrealistic demands and then badmouth the superior with their team. > I characterized a certain type of person by how they would act at the extremes. This is literally a false dichotomy. > Why did you turn what I said into "punch them in the face"? It's called dramatic effect, I don't literally think that you said it but my comment stands even if you take your literal argument. > But what if the manager had not said the truth but (trying to please the superior) promised impossible things? Neither I nor the article argue you should do this, so you threw a strawman on top of your false dichotomy. I don't see how we can have a fruitful discussion when the positions you claim are being taken are positions that exist only in your head.