Programmer, these 12 questions make the manager more miserable than you.

(This article was published in the "Programmer" 2015.11.A) as "The new technical leadership will meet the problem"

The Analects of Confucius and children Zhang:

Zi xia yue: "Shi and gifted are learning, learning and excellent".

The second half of the sentence " Learning and Gifted " is more familiar, according to my shallow and secular understanding, the meaning is, by learning can be made, that is, you learned, you can be an official. such as Su Dongpo, such as Liu Zongyuan, such as Chusuliang, such as Confucius, such as Reese, such as Su Qin, such as fan Zhongyan, such as Ouyang Xiu, such as the Hai, such as the Du fu ... This situation, in ancient times is really countless.

Learning and excellent is this tradition, in the field of software development also embodies: many people will be because of the technical work done well and embarked on management positions. However, such a walk of technical leadership, in the new promotion, will often face a lot of problems, experience painful transition period. This is the same as those who learned and gifted scholar scholars, such as fan Zhongyan repeatedly relegated, such as Du Fu always do not ...

Now, let's take a look at what problems the new technology leaders will encounter and how to break them.

1. Creating Leadership for appointments

With the team and when the creeps are completely different, technical leaders need to organize, lead, motivate others to work for their goals. But other people will not listen to you, will not be responded, will not actively work, when others disagree with their own how to do, how to let others accept their assigned tasks, how to let others accept you for its set goals ... These are problems that require influence and leadership to play.

However, the new technical leadership has just arrived at the manager position, may not have realized to the leadership, probably did not know how to do, will be wrong to use the administrative power to demand (order) others to do certain things. This is a misconception that appointments can give a technical leadership executive power, but not leadership. The pressure from power may seem effective within a short period of time, but in fact it can seriously undermine the leadership and influence of a manager, and if a manager frequently uses the strategy of a senior officer to push people forward in projects and projects, it often ends up being counterproductive, causing boredom and feedback and losing prestige in the team.

2. Fear that others won't work

From the general engineer to the manager, start managing other programmers, start managing the project, and start taking responsibility for the overall team or department's work progress. There are a variety of concerns at this point, one of which is: what if someone doesn't work hard or doesn't work?

Because just as a technical leader, the role of the manager has not been adapted, do not know how a project personnel how to operate, take for granted that everyone should be workload saturation, work actively, project progress can be guaranteed, so every member of the efforts to work actively will be particularly concerned. At the same time may also be pushed by people, if they are special efforts to make a positive achievement before promotion, it may feel that others should also be consistent with their own, if they have been for a variety of reasons to do the act, but also worry about others to find all kinds of excuses do not do good work and affect the progress ...

In fact, this worry is very normal, but from the objective is not too important, you believe that everyone will actively complete the work, the result will certainly evolve in this direction. Because most teams have developed a rhythm that can pass the turbulent period of leadership turnover and then continue to function effectively. Trust is the cornerstone of everything.

3. Always want to end up in person

Technical leaders who are promoted by technology often have strong technical skills and even excel. The advantage of this technical capability can be an obvious influence on a person as a general employee, but when the person becomes a manager, it can sometimes be a hindrance to his leadership work. Because he may often take his own skill level to measure the team's other people, feel that the task Zhang San difficult to deal with, the task John Doe make a mistake, so do not rest assured that the matter to others to do, or to others to do and because see to make mistakes, can not help themselves reach to do, the task of the team members to take back to do.

When a technical leader is able to take back the task by worrying that his subordinates will be wrong or unable to complete the task according to their expectations, either make the subordinates feel incompetent (or let their subordinates guess the leader thinks they are incompetent), or let their subordinates feel that the leader someone else not do what he should do, which will have serious adverse effects, Not conducive to team members themselves grow up to solve problems. At the same time, the technical leader will be too concerned about technical details and neglect of other organizations, leadership work, leading to trees trees, seriously affecting the efficiency and productivity of the entire team.

4. Fear of losing technology loses competitiveness

Some technical leaders have just begun to bring a team, often still in the past role, that technology is the only body of this, worried about giving up technical details, they will lose competitiveness, will depreciate. For example, you may worry that if you leave from this manager position, you may not be able to find the job of management, and because of unfamiliar technology and can not find technical work. So, they will fall into the tangle, on the one hand to improve the efficiency of the whole team and have to do a lot of organization, motivation, leadership, coordination and other work, spending a lot of energy, on the other hand, these non-technical work will occupy most of their energy, resulting in no time to develop technology and anxiety.

In fact, at this time more important is the field of vision. You may know less about technical details, but you may know more about technical options, technology categories, and the impact of technology, creating a broader vision that will compensate for your lack of technical depth. And, in fact, you have reached the depth of technology still exist, even fermentation, will in turn nourish your technical vision, because if you have reached a certain depth of technology before, must be in the study to find a suitable law, this learning mode, will help you learn more quickly more technology, let you enrich yourself from the breadth, This does not guarantee that you will be more competitive in technology, but it will also help you maintain technical competitiveness at a certain level.

Most importantly, in addition to technology, your exercise in management positions will certainly bring you deeper changes in the future: either you have fostered organizational competency leadership, or you recognize that you are better suited to do something, have a clearer understanding of your abilities and competencies, and once you have this knowledge, you will be able to do anything else- Because, you will be more likely to find the things you like to do and go into it with enthusiasm and hesitation.

5. Do not understand job responsibilities

Many from the front-line promotion of technical leadership, at first do not understand the manager of the role of the job, do not know what to do, how to do, the company's assessment of the position of the target, the superior leadership of the job expectations, these are problems. Although some companies have a clear stipulation of the project manager, department manager and other job responsibilities, but did not do, look at those who are not angry official description is also pretty egg pain, look at all is Chinese characters, every word know, but see is not know what meaning, and did not see almost. Moreover, many companies actually do not have this thing, or simply copied from the Internet or other companies, whether the application is no one.

You see, for example, that the project manager's responsibilities are written like this:

To ensure the realization of project objectives, lead the project team to complete the work on time and quality.

Do you have any real help? Another example is this one:

Communicate with customers to understand the overall needs of the project. and maintain a certain degree of contact with customers, instant feedback on the results of the phased, and immediately change the reasonable demand of customers.

Do you have any real help?

Even if you understand the job responsibilities through the company's documentation, you will still be confused about the scope of the work: What should I do? Do you have any standards? Which of the light which weighs which is the content of the appraisal which affects my performance appraisal greatly?

There are too many problems. You know to be as a manager to communicate with customers, however this does not have any eggs, and can not expose you to the overwhelming unknown, you only have to slowly try to know how deep water, you are from an engineer's role suddenly become a platoon leader, the previous experience almost useless, You have not mastered the new project management and personnel management experience must face those things, this is a "negative position" process, you have to slowly stones to adapt to.

Note: People's actual ability is often lower than the position he sits in, that is to say, there is a negative position in his seat. This phenomenon is called negative bit.

You need a peer or senior colleague who can grow up with you to act as your mentor (mentor) to help you get familiar with the various things in your work as quickly as possible, to help you answer questions, and to steer your direction when necessary.

6. Fear of making mistakes

Because of the responsibilities of the job, unclear, this time will worry about making mistakes, worrying about what things wrong leader not to see, and because the superiors do not understand and it is difficult to know what the current superior is what style, how to ask subordinates, Nature is also concerned that if their style and leadership mismatch will make the leader overreact to their own mistakes.

Also, you may worry that the leader is not good at judging yourself-because you are not so handy in a negative position. But when you have this worry, you will increasingly want to do things well, and then, either slow decision-making, or the strength of the use of the wrong things, and finally really bad.

Err, who can have no. Making mistakes is also a kind of growth, it is difficult to grow without making mistakes, not to be afraid, and to be a fortune.

7. Fear of subordinates talking about themselves

The new promotion of technical leadership, often because have not done before, and particularly care about whether they do well, will be worried about the leadership of their own evaluation, but also worry about the subordinates to their own views. At this stage, the slightest hint of trouble can make a person's imagination. More sensitive people may also cause nervousness due to excessive anxiety.

In fact, the wind blew down the plane tree, own others on the short. No matter what you do, it is impossible to meet the interests of all people, always someone will talk about, because this and trembling is not necessary, or believe it: Go their own way, let others say go.

8. Do not know how to cultivate leadership

Why do people listen to you? How do you influence others to make others work towards a goal?

This is a big and difficult question. For new technology leaders, some will mistakenly assume leadership for the appointment, but most will slowly realize that leadership and appointment are not directly related. So where does leadership come from?

When you as a programmer, relative to other people's technical advantages may make you speak more powerful, when a team of the various members of the technical level, the contribution of technology to leadership can be almost ignored, the relationship between the more affect one's leadership; When a programmer takes a managerial position, His technical skills are likely to have little or no special contribution to leadership, and may even undermine his influence-if he's everything.

One of Weinberg's technical trilogy, "Becoming a technology leader," has been discussed in detail, and is of interest to me, which I have recommended in my subscription number "program Horizon". This book is for everyone who wants to be a technical leader and should read it as a beacon of your way to becoming a technology leader. It defines the role of leadership:

The role of leadership is to create an environment in which everyone can play more.

If you can understand this, it will be very helpful to nurture your leadership. To this end, the technical leadership should be a public servant role, for the team members to serve, someone needs resources to the coordination of resources, some people do not understand the goal to help him clear goals and set his personal goals, the different modules interface can not be confirmed on the organization of the relevant personnel discussion, Zhang San task completion of the good is clear affirmation, John Doe on the technical direction he was engaged in to help him find the direction of ownership and development, someone suddenly depressed low efficiency in time to find the reasons behind and provide support when necessary ... You have done one thing together with you, and have seen and recognized your efforts, you have the leadership ... In short, you do everything, create a let everyone to do their job each of the director of the environment, so that the organization is working properly, so that the goal can be achieved, then your leadership has formed.

9. Failure to accept performance than when normal staff time difference

Before we say from the technical post promotion to the management post, this new technical leadership is often negative, so, in the performance evaluation period after taking office, he scored, such as no accident, is certainly more than he does ordinary staff jet lag.

Well, this kind of result tends to make the comrade unacceptable. You want to ah, I when the ordinary a soldier time to get a, now when the manager, people are tired into a horse heart is a slag, the result is C! There is a normal mood, no mood is not normal. But in fact, it should be a different angle to think, in the technical leadership position, in fact you are starting from 0 Oh, there is a climbing curve is also in line with logic.

10. Certain things can lead to frustration

Sometimes we also meet some specific things, do not know how to do.

For example, the company is a combination of rank assessment and year-end performance to determine whether a person raises a raise, the three did not participate in the rank assessment but the results of the work is very good, from all aspects should pay rise, at this time how do you operate? Legend has it that someone has operated a non-normal process to raise the employee's salary, but you don't know how to do it. Ask who? How do you persuade your boss to support this? How do you get around the company's regular processes?

For example, you have to report to the high-level every month, you need to write PPT, and you only have a management department to the PPT template, the template in addition to the cover and back only a page text, write a few words, how do you use this template to write your first monthly report material?

For example, the company rules to meet with subordinates on a regular basis, you have never had this experience, do not know what the goal is, what to talk about, how to talk about, how to deal with the problems that may arise, think of it will be afraid to escape, who to save you?

You will face a variety of things for you the first thing, and most of the time no one show you how to do, and no chance to rehearse, you can only rely on the feeling of walking on thin ice, a inattention did not do well, may be the boss criticized by the subordinate scorn, such frustration may be difficult to accept ...

11. Shame on the next question

Some of the new technical leadership, encountered problems embarrassed to ask for help, afraid to find leadership to reveal their ignorance, short board, afraid of others despise, afraid to appear not sophisticated ...

In fact, no, who is mindset? We are constantly learning from the continuous practice of cultivating their ability, a lot of things you have not experienced is not known to have not done is no experience, recourse to others is natural, but the general people are also willing to help you, not because you do not understand a certain technical rules and despise you, The fact that you reveal your ignorance in some way does not indicate that you have a problem with your ability, and that people are more real and attractive because they are not so high. At the same time, a person only to face their own ignorance before they can progress faster.

3rd when Sians, no need to worry about, despite the forward, your achievements tomorrow will not be because you yesterday ignorant and lose a color, on the contrary, you will get a reputation for rapid growth.

12. Do not know how to deal with the relationship between change

When a programmer becomes a technical leader, there is a change of relationship: the same partner will become subordinate, the original difficult to see the senior leadership.

In the face of the original sibling of the small partner, is the pretended majesty picked up bureaucratic, or still laughing equals? is Daguanqiang business business going to get people to poke their fingers and think they're xiaorendezhi? Will equals harmony hinder the assignment and execution of tasks and ultimately what is hard to push? This is also a problem of a moderate. But generally do not have to deliberately end, the public and private clear.

New leaders tend to be at a higher level, and there is a big difference between the point of view and the point of view and the newly promoted manager. The usual situation is that he does not look at the results, and you are often in the role of the manager and the negative position process, so often receive criticism, negative information. What to do? In fact, this is a must through the process, although the boss said in the letter is not perfect, but also very few bosses have that busy mind specifically for you (unfortunately you do not think so important), generally accepted. To believe that you are getting better, as you become familiar with the rules, the good things will soon come along with the evolution of your character transformation process.

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Copyright NOTICE: This article is Foruok original article, without BO Master permission cannot reprint.

Programmer, these 12 questions make the manager more miserable than you.