Ask HN: What was the hardest part about being a first time manager?
What was the most surprising thing to you about becoming a manager? What was the hardest thing you had to learn? What helped?
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2014 where @jevanish convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
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HISTORICAL ERA Cloud & Mobile Era (2014–2019)
COMMUNITY SCORE ★ 6 points
TOTAL DISCUSSIONS 10 comments
The hardest thing was listening. I'm still working on active listening. That meant shutting up and actually synthesizing what your direct reports are trying to tell you. I used to always complete other people's sentences and it took an honest friend to tell me that was annoying.
The best resource that's helped me for management was a class called Business Management for Electrical Engineer and Computer Scientists (http://www.stanford.edu/class/ee353/) Check it out here if you have the time. All the important business topics like strategy, accounting, pricing, marketing, managing - it's all there condensed in a quarter.
Here's what I found surprising: Management allows me to multiply my technical skills with the team's help. You'll find that you can accomplish far more with a solid team than just by yourself.
Similar to the other posters, go the extra mile for your direct reports by genuinely caring for them. In a professional manner, ALWAYS set them up to win. Never throw them a project knowing that it's a sinking ship. They'll know.
For books, another one that's helped is "How to Win Friends and Influence People." A fun one to read is "The Witch Doctors" by exposing management "gurus". You'll realize management theories change every day and everyone's scrambling to defend or find the next theory that encompasses the essence of management. I find it very similar to programming language worship. That's not entirely a bad thing since that means the field will keep evolving. That also means what works for me might not work exactly for you.
There is very little available advice on starting out in management.
Start by valuing everyone who reports to you. Give them all respect - and that can be hard when someone is not performing OR you misunderstand their position and thus get the idea they are not making the right contribution.
Look for talent and encourage it. This is very hard. Too often you judge people by the job they are doing now rather than try and gauge how they might tackle the next job (this will happen to you as well).
Catch your people "doing things right" and praise them for it - way better than catching them doing the wrong thing and telling them off.
Stand by all of your team - no matter how big the foul up - take the blame up front. Sort out what went wrong afterwards.
Never be too afraid to say sorry - I messed up - it is not easy but the worst managers bluff their way through when all of their team know then blew it!
Good luck - and learn from your best people.