[cskinner]

Good managers are largely similar, but bad managers are each bad in their own way (with apologies to Tolstoy).

From my good managers I have learnt the value of shielding working employees from excessive meetings and bureaucracy, and trusting people to work out their own solutions while assiting and supporting them.

However, I have learnt so much more (direcly and indirectly) from my bad managers. A couple of examples:

From the manager that everone described as "he is very good technically, ....", I had to quickly learn how to smooth relationships, negotiate with, and jointly arrive at solutions with other parts of the company after my manager would bang his fist on the table, yell about having told them the correct way to do things previously and that the current problem is all their fault before storming out of the room.

From the manager that quickly grabbed full credit for anything and everything done by his team, even when he had zero involvement, I learnt how to be more considerate in making sure I gave out appropriate credit (both internally and to clients) of the people that I worked with.

[mmcnl]

Shielding is a tricky thing. Shielding is nice, less stuff to worry about, but also reduces transparency. In the end you're not working for your manager. Your manager will not use the thing that you are building. I would say that any mature organization doesn't need a manager to shield the team, the team should be able to that themselves.

[roland35]

I think shielding doesn't necessarily mean lack of transparency, if they are a good manager they should be able to provide you context and information about the bigger picture while still protecting your time and representing your interests in meetings with higher ups and peer groups.

[beckingz]

Lot of immaturity out there in that case.