What sets great managers apart(hellmayr.com)
hellmayr.com
What sets great managers apart
https://www.hellmayr.com/blog/2025-08-17-great-managers
16 comments
It’s funny because my manager used to blame things on HR…
Then I became a team lead and a people manager. Nobody told me squat. I decided bonuses and performance rating freely. I entered them directly into the system.
All the HR stuff was all a lie.
Left soon after when I was held back (without pay increase) while other engineers with less experience and significantly fewer accomplishments were fast tracked for promotions while I was held back.
Then I became a team lead and a people manager. Nobody told me squat. I decided bonuses and performance rating freely. I entered them directly into the system.
All the HR stuff was all a lie.
Left soon after when I was held back (without pay increase) while other engineers with less experience and significantly fewer accomplishments were fast tracked for promotions while I was held back.
Currently experiencing the same. I am the lowest paid in the team, the people I am expected to mentor are paid higher and my applications for promotions keep getting rejected yet I am told I need ro mentor the others who earn more than me. Spending most of my evenings preparing for interviews
Good for you!
I’ve learned two things over the years:
- raises/promotions in the same company never happen, even when overdue
- switching companies can mean more pay, better environment, and wider skill set — all at the same time.
It’s really surprising how many disadvantages there are at staying at the same place for > 5-10 years.
I’m also shocked at how little companies value length of tenure. Someone in the same project for 3-4 years is infinitely more productive than someone working on it for 1-2. Yet, companies (and including project managers) really don’t care.
I always worried about getting into something worse than my current job. (Other than compensation, I was happy with coworkers and the type of work. ) But each time I switched, I was wiser and avoided making such mistakes.
Of course, each company I’ve joined often took a nose dive within a few years. Some didn’t work out as long as I hoped. Others survived far longer than I expected.
In contrast, the people with 20 years at the same company are so pigeonholed with outdated skills that they are virtually unemployable anywhere else…
I’ve learned two things over the years:
- raises/promotions in the same company never happen, even when overdue
- switching companies can mean more pay, better environment, and wider skill set — all at the same time.
It’s really surprising how many disadvantages there are at staying at the same place for > 5-10 years.
I’m also shocked at how little companies value length of tenure. Someone in the same project for 3-4 years is infinitely more productive than someone working on it for 1-2. Yet, companies (and including project managers) really don’t care.
I always worried about getting into something worse than my current job. (Other than compensation, I was happy with coworkers and the type of work. ) But each time I switched, I was wiser and avoided making such mistakes.
Of course, each company I’ve joined often took a nose dive within a few years. Some didn’t work out as long as I hoped. Others survived far longer than I expected.
In contrast, the people with 20 years at the same company are so pigeonholed with outdated skills that they are virtually unemployable anywhere else…
Communication is important, sure. But I don’t think it’s the most important skill for managers.
If communication was the key skill needed to be a great manager, it would imply that great managers could parachute in to run any old team, as long as they were able to communicate well.
But the best managers don’t just communicate their decisions; they need to exercise judgment and expertise to make good decisions in the first place. And making good decisions requires understanding your technology/product/team very well, which all go far beyond communication.
If communication was the key skill needed to be a great manager, it would imply that great managers could parachute in to run any old team, as long as they were able to communicate well.
But the best managers don’t just communicate their decisions; they need to exercise judgment and expertise to make good decisions in the first place. And making good decisions requires understanding your technology/product/team very well, which all go far beyond communication.
I agree. Good communication can feel good while not providing any benefit to reports or the business. Good communication paired with good decision making is the best but if you have to pick between the two, you need good decision making while communication is just nice to have.
Very true - decision quality is super important! My point here is that trust erodes in the absence of good communication, and when that happens, your decisions matter less because you won‘t be able to deliver on them as effectively.
In your other point though, I‘ve seen highly effective managers who didn‘t understand much of what the team was doing technically, because the were able to build trust among everyone involved in major processes.
In your other point though, I‘ve seen highly effective managers who didn‘t understand much of what the team was doing technically, because the were able to build trust among everyone involved in major processes.
one of the most annoying things to me are managers who pull the "here's what I'm evaluating you on...now write up this self eval what you've done over the last year that fits these items and I'll copy paste it into your eval." Why even become a manager if you can't capture these yourself? A self evaluation should be a reflection of what a person gained over the past year and not an exercise to fill out a form for a manager to remind them of such.
As a manager I take notes throughout the year WITH my staff to capture what they worked on, how they grew, and all that stuff. If there are stumbles along the way we capture those too. It just makes it easier to then show the higher ups how consistently good a person is (or not in some cases). The self eval is less of an exercise in futility of reminding the boss what you did but an opportunity for staff to reflect on their growth.
As a manager I take notes throughout the year WITH my staff to capture what they worked on, how they grew, and all that stuff. If there are stumbles along the way we capture those too. It just makes it easier to then show the higher ups how consistently good a person is (or not in some cases). The self eval is less of an exercise in futility of reminding the boss what you did but an opportunity for staff to reflect on their growth.
> one of the most annoying things to me are managers who pull the "here's what I'm evaluating you on...now write up this self eval what you've done over the last year that fits these items and I'll copy paste it into your eval."
Every Friday morning, my company has a meeting for the teams to explain what they've worked on that week. Every Thursday afternoon, my manager asks me what I've worked on that week.
So when I do something, I have to explain that I did it at least three times:
1. In Jira. 2. In daily standup. 3. Every Thursday to my manager. 4. Sometimes in Slack, because no one reads Jira comments unless they're pointed to in Slack.
Every Friday morning, my company has a meeting for the teams to explain what they've worked on that week. Every Thursday afternoon, my manager asks me what I've worked on that week.
So when I do something, I have to explain that I did it at least three times:
1. In Jira. 2. In daily standup. 3. Every Thursday to my manager. 4. Sometimes in Slack, because no one reads Jira comments unless they're pointed to in Slack.
I am now retired but I was a middle manager with three different Fortune 500 companies. What I experienced was the same at all three companies:
1. Senior management had no clue how to hire middle managers. Literally one hundred percent were selected as a promotional reward to the best performing employee. Almost always a person who had no prior management experience. And there was no training.
2. Senior management demanded obedience and loyalty. If there were performance issues, they wanted the person fired. If too many people were fired, then that was the middle manager's fault. In the end, if you didn't have people on performance plans, you weren't being tough enough. But if you ended up having turnover, you were going to be fired yourself.
1. Senior management had no clue how to hire middle managers. Literally one hundred percent were selected as a promotional reward to the best performing employee. Almost always a person who had no prior management experience. And there was no training.
2. Senior management demanded obedience and loyalty. If there were performance issues, they wanted the person fired. If too many people were fired, then that was the middle manager's fault. In the end, if you didn't have people on performance plans, you weren't being tough enough. But if you ended up having turnover, you were going to be fired yourself.
I think advocating is impossible to be done by managers effectively. There're just so many dimensions involved and it's genuinely non-trivial. The best workplace is where the employees advocate for each other. Because everyone notices different things about others, but they often just keep it to themselves. They assume just because it is revealed to them it must be obvious to others as well. Not so.
And advocating for yourself is just doomed to fail. But that doesn't mean you don't have a voice. You do, for others; due to the nature of how advocating works.
And advocating for yourself is just doomed to fail. But that doesn't mean you don't have a voice. You do, for others; due to the nature of how advocating works.
"Advocating" isn't necessarily just praising their team.
Managers end up in rooms that their reports don't, so the manager needs to effectively represent the team's interests in those forums.
For example, if a manager is in a project allocation meeting and sees a project that would help their reports reach their career goals, the manager should be "advocating" for the project to be assigned to their team.
For example, if a manager is in a project allocation meeting and sees a project that would help their reports reach their career goals, the manager should be "advocating" for the project to be assigned to their team.
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I don't think this is what sets great managers apart. Communication is certainly necessary, but not sufficient. Empathy and care, technical relevance, decisiveness, honesty, ability to provide feedback, trust are all at least as important as communication.
At this point, I'd take someone somewhat capable and behaving like a human over most things.
At this point, I'd take someone somewhat capable and behaving like a human over most things.
I would say that clear and accurate communication is one qualification of being a good manager. It’s not the only qualification, and not enough to be great.
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These days our 1 on 1's barely last 5 minutes, it's like we do it as a formality. She is even afraid of talking to me and the worst bit is that I cannot change teams because of the PIP. Plus it's a bad job market. never been this dammned