To be In Charge or In Charge of Work – An IAM Group Ltd Singapore Insight

Management tends to think that the reward for being exceptional and a hard worker is becoming management. For some that may even be true, they may aspire to become management, however, a lot of people don't realize that technical skills don't necessarily translate to management skills. And the other technical people where it's not that they want to be management, rather, they either want the increase in pay that comes with the title or they are too afraid to decline and let management know what they really want.

One of the problems is that a lot of those "management tasks" are, for a technologist, fairly repetitive and not scalable. Coordination, tracking, reporting, inter-team communication, personnel management ("soft" people skills), and so on are huge time sinks. They obviously play a huge role in determining the success or failure of a project, but they're not things that most superstar technologists hold in high regard. So, there is inevitable tension between the technology side of the house and the management side

The real problem is that these tasks are seen as more valuable than the engineering work itself. If you flip the model on its head and say that the day to day running of the team is less important than the actual engineering work, then you have a different problem, which is that it’s hard to find people who are willing to "run" a team, while at the same time being powerless to effect any changes in the way that team is run. No-one wants to be powerless.

Many of the best programmers and developers I have observed are good at managing technical tasks and organizing them, even if they aren't necessarily good at managing the technical people that perform those tasks. Many of the middle and upper members in management that I have worked with over the years seem to be unable to make the distinction between someone who manages their own work well and someone that manages people well. Those are two very different skills.

Some management types have the mistaken notion that promoting a developer or programmer to management is the ideal method of recognizing that person for a job well done without realizing that a lot of us simply don't want to be in charge, we just want to be in charge of our work.

IAM Group Ltd is a self-funded, non-profit association of middle managers worldwide from all kinds of industries. We are committed to helping fellow managers and their supporting staff in making the corporate environment the best breeding ground for fresh and effective ways to be productive. We welcome all contributors and new members worldwide to share all your work experience.