This is a great list!

The biggest lesson for me was that your job as a manager is to be the soft power representing the authority of the investors. Everything else you hear about management is people rationalizing their role and figuring out how to tow the line. That's why it's so hard and stressful.

The hardest lesson comes when you're ordered to fire someone from your team. HR has decided to implement a performance rubric and wants to maintain the company's position in the hiring market place as a competitive place to work. You must fire the poorest performing member of your team. Who do you pick?

That's the essence of management. Who do you reward, who do you punish, how do you show that you're towing the line?

Most folks, myself included, are promoted into an EM role. No training. No certifications. If you're lucky you get a few training videos from HR if the company you work for is big enough to have an HR department. As an EM you are now in charge of the careers of the people who work under you.

This is why you get such a high variation in the quality of EMs. Some people are a nightmare to work with. If they get a bad impression of you there's nothing you can do. You're cooked when it comes time for that manager to let someone go. There are no objective metrics. They have to pick someone and they will find the reasons.

I left management because I couldn't handle it. Too stressful.