I think he wanted to be one of the ones walking on the doormat. It sounds to me like it just gets worse as you go up the chain.

My current manager says he'd see my old manager (from the OP) with another director that we knew in the VPs office all the time getting beaten down. "Do you think he likes his job?" "From the looks on their faces, I can't imagine that he would."

Me? I love being in a position where people think, "Barry's really good at what he does." Even when my manager talks about promotions, I tell him to make sure that he doesn't push so hard that they start expecting more than I can easily produce.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

Had a brief chat with current boss. The assessment: former boss took a job that no one else wanted because it was doomed to fail. Not only that, he was in way over his head.

He took a director position and had to build a group out of nothing with no support from upper management. Prior experience was leading a team of 3 people for a year, and then being on a special project for a year with no reports.

When I worked with him I always thought he was a good bullshitter. He knew how to dot his i's and cross his t's to make his projects look good, and he played the politics game well, but as Harry Connick Jr. once told me, "Once you get the gig, you better be ready to play!"

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485

My two cents: a good manager is invaluable, but they're hard to find and I think in the software world--where my experience is--it's probably a universal issue because software development doesn't lend itself to good management skills. Our R&D department is comprised of engineers, who write the engine code; DBA's, who write and maintain the database code and tables, BA's, who write the specs, research bugs, manage projects and maintain our accounting rules and client-facing panels. In each case the people who are successful, the people who ultimately get promoted and moved into management roles, are those who are flat-out the smartest, most efficient and hardest working in the department...generally they can take a project and hit a home run on it in less time than anyone else can. Does any of that lend itself to managing a group of people?

My current manager is awful. He's a great guy, I've worked with him for all of my eight years at the company and he's been in this role for five of them. He's great on the BA side of things, managing projects and juggling tasks, but he's taken that to his current role and that's what he does: he manages projects and juggles tasks. He doesn't think big picture, doesn't think about efficiencies and waste within the group and how to manage the group, how to juggle people, not projects.

This past week I was pulled into training on a new SDLC model--using the agile methodology as opposed to the waterfall approach that we currently use. And I see a lot of benefits to it, some definite drawbacks but we can manage that while also reaping the benefits of the new system. I don't want to go over my managers head on it but frankly, he doesn't care...his entire focus is on the day-to-day of hitting our targets on projects, he never takes the time to think big picture about how to more efficiently manage the group.

I'd imagine my experience with poor management in a software R&D department is far from unique, and I'd venture to guess a lot of companies would benefit from hiring their managers from outside the company in most cases because people who gravitate to R&D roles generally aren't suited for management positions. That's my experience at least.

Our company, like most engineering companies, I suppose, has been hit or miss with managers. There's one whom I particularly like. He's probably got a very average IQ for our department, but he's an old military guy and manages people very well.

In the case of the guy in the OP, he shot right past low level management and into a position where I don't think he really needed to worry about managing people. I do know that he never learned how not to micro manage, which I'm guess at his level probably just added to the stress. Its one thing to micromanage 2-3 employees. Its another to micromanage 4 managers, each leading a team of 5 employees. That's just too much to worry about while you've got your own job to perform as well.

As I'd said, I think he was in over his head. He was very good at figuring out how to give a good impression to upper management, and he sucked up to all the right people, but that will only get you so far. He was, in my opinion, big hat, not a lot of cattle.

Truth be told, he might have been fine if he had taken another 10 years to get to that position. Experience can really help.

I, for one, like to take on jobs when I'm ready for them. In our very first one on one I more or less told him that when talking about long term goals. I could tell that he didn't like my answer. Despite being 5 years older than him, I could tell he always thought that those kinds of answers were just signs of my immaturity and he hoped he could motivate me to grow up.

........he also never listened to any of my running advice. He thought he could read Born to Run and buy some 5 fingers and ignore everything that I had to say because I couldn't see the big picture.

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-----------------------------Baron Von Speedypants
-----------------------------RunTraining articles here:
http://forum.slowtwitch.com/...runtraining;#1612485