This was a great read! Saving this to re-read in the future.
One question I have though is what are you supposed to do if as a new manager you aren't allowed to... well, do your job? I haven't been able to find a lot of resources on what to do in such a situation.
I'm a new engineering manager (~8 months in) and my boss isn't letting me hire full-time devs to replace consultants whenever they leave or their contracts are up and I am not allowed to replace any developers who leave either due to a company-wide hiring freeze. I have lost 4 of my most senior engineers in the last 6 months since I can't replace the consultants or hire anyone new. I'm down to 2 senior devs on my team when we used to have 6, with the same amount of work. They have also implemented mandatory return to office clearly frustrating my team. In addition, I am not allowed to promote any of my team members to try and encourage them to stay.
The heck am I even supposed to do? What is the point of being an EM if you quite literally are not allowed to do your job? I can't hire, I can't promote people, and I need to continue delivering at the same capacity with a significantly scaled-down team. My boss just tells me to try my best to encourage the team through this tough time.
I haven't found any resources on how to handle this kind of situation as a new EM. If I knew this is what was in store for me I would have never taken the job.
One question I have though is what are you supposed to do if as a new manager you aren't allowed to... well, do your job? I haven't been able to find a lot of resources on what to do in such a situation.
I'm a new engineering manager (~8 months in) and my boss isn't letting me hire full-time devs to replace consultants whenever they leave or their contracts are up and I am not allowed to replace any developers who leave either due to a company-wide hiring freeze. I have lost 4 of my most senior engineers in the last 6 months since I can't replace the consultants or hire anyone new. I'm down to 2 senior devs on my team when we used to have 6, with the same amount of work. They have also implemented mandatory return to office clearly frustrating my team. In addition, I am not allowed to promote any of my team members to try and encourage them to stay.
The heck am I even supposed to do? What is the point of being an EM if you quite literally are not allowed to do your job? I can't hire, I can't promote people, and I need to continue delivering at the same capacity with a significantly scaled-down team. My boss just tells me to try my best to encourage the team through this tough time.
I haven't found any resources on how to handle this kind of situation as a new EM. If I knew this is what was in store for me I would have never taken the job.