Ed Wagner (2/8/2016)
Jack Corbett (2/8/2016)
Steve,Good editorial as usual. I think you sum it up well in the last paragraph:
The mark of a good manager is that they find ways to treat each employee differently, in a way that suits them best, while maintaining a core set of values and rules for the entire organization.
A lot of managers find that an impossible skill to master. It isn't an easy one because so many people are motivated differently and relate to others differently.
Knowing how to motivate and manage people/projects are distinct skill sets. Most orgs don't recognize that lots of people have very specialized skill sets that are frequently non-transferable and don't apply to other areas of operation, and lots of years as a programmer/whatever does not mean that you would make a good manager of programmers/whatevers if promoted in to such a position.
Thinking about it, some of my best managers were not computer experts. One was a retired Air Force officer who knew enough about computers to speak well as an interface between management, end users, and programmers. But he didn't know the minutia of database development or server management. He trusted us to do our jobs well, and we did.
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[font="Arial"]Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves or we know where we can find information upon it. --Samuel Johnson[/font]