[davidg109]

^ THIS. Where I’ve worked, there has been a severe degradation over time of actual leaders, and an increase in managers who have no clue how to lead or inspire.

One thing I have oriented myself to doing is being a servant leader. As I told one team I led, “I’m your bitch. Tell me where your rocks are and I’ll move them out of the way so you can get your work done.” And then I do exactly that. I’ve had to work miracles sometimes but I can usually clear the path.

I detest micro management in every conceivable way, but I do believe in accountability and ensuring the work is done on time by the team with no surprises. This has worked well for me.

Been some time since I read about this stuff but Five Dysfunctions of a Team I recall being descent. Summary article here: https://www.runn.io/blog/5-dysfunctions-of-a-team-summary

[jackblemming]

>As I told one team I led, “I’m your bitch. Tell me where your rocks are and I’ll move them out of the way so you can get your work done.”

Great mindset and thoughts, but I hope this isn't what you actually said. I'd also like to point out serving someone or some thing doesn't make you a bitch.

[tptacek]

If this is your whole mindset, in what sense are you a leader? The person who moves rocks out of the way of the path for the army to march on generally isn't the leader; the leader is the guy (it's always a guy) telling people which rocks to move.

I'm not dunking on you; maybe you aren't a servant-leader, but rather just a servant. That's a great way to be: a servant of "the mission" (replace with whatever term keeps the contents of your stomach down).

[fifilura]

My experience regarding the servant manager is that it is really important that you also figure out what is in it for you.

There is a big risk that your career stops at that - being a servant.

[tptacek]

At the risk of sounding glib, in "startup world" (the sector of the tech industry characterized mostly by companies between 100-1000 people large) there are two career tracks:

(1) The track you get on by demonstrating viability in roles of escalating seniority, such as by leaving a Sr. Manager job for a Director job.

(2) The track you get on by having an easily observable or articulable track record of getting important (or at least interesting) things done.

Ruthlessly working "track 1" may rule out "serving" a team (and at the same time rationalizing that by avoiding that "trap" you're "serving" the broader company mission), but that mindset practically rules out progression on "track 2".

[mft_]

The best managers/leaders I've had in this vein are sufficiently recognised for their part in the performance of their team.

Wouldn't it be a small red flag about an organisation if this wasn't the case?

[dasil003]

This is a strange comment. Everyone in a corporate structure is a servant. How you advance is by demonstrating that you are helping solve the problems deemed important by your chain of command. Theoretically this should be aligned from top to bottom; in practice competing priorities, communication overhead, and incompetence in the wrong places can greatly distort things. This reality leads a lot of folks into learned helplessness, and social climbers gaming the chaos to gain power they are not equipped to handle.

The mentality "what's in it for me" is toxic and shows one is not ready for higher level management in a large org where cooperation is necessary to do anything interesting. Better questions are "is my team working on the right thing?", "does my team have the right skills to deliver on that thing?", "what relationships do we need to succeed?", and last but definitely not least "is my manager competent enough to provide the support I need for my team to be successful?". The last question is the key one: you won't grow if you are reporting to a muppet.