Engineer or Manager?

Delegate

Hey

What I think is, you are more than welcome to delegate if you know the work and are sure of what the result is gonna look like so that you can at least verify what the engineer has done. Otherwise, delegation will not help and you might also land in trouble sometimes. So you have to very carefully deligate. Or you have to master your engineer's work first before deligation -which means that at least initially for sometime you have to perform both the roles. Makes sense ??

There are two things a manager has to manage: people and workload.

Managing people:

I’m working on a predisposed assumption here, but one based on the managerial style I’ve adopted. First of all, my definition of a good manager is similar to my definition of preferred government. Paraphrasing Thomas Jefferson, it is my belief that, “the manager who manages least, manages best”. (Substitute government for manager – thanks, Thomas.) I truly believe that the first and foremost duty of a good manager is this: Find good people who are capable of doing the job (and then some), and then get out of their way and let them do it. Let them solve problems, not defer them to the manager. Let them grow, and be fulfilled in their position. Let them perform well, and then give them the credit for the department’s success. If a manager wants to get into every little aspect of what his people are doing, he’ll soon become a very ineffective micro-manager. (And that’s not good.) Only when people can’t do their jobs is when the manager intervenes. (And that’s a topic for whole other discussion.)

Here’s an analogy. The captain of a star ship (I love science fiction) is not muchmore than a good manager. He’s leading his crew on a mission, but he (hopefully) has good people capable of doing their jobs without interference. He makes the decisions necessary to determine where the craft is headed, but he relies on his people to get it there. He intervenes only when there’s a logistical conflict or failure of some sort. And even then, only when his people can’t do it themselves.

"I’m giving you as much power as I can, captain. If I give you muchmore, she’s going to blow!”

Okay, now is a good time to intervene.

1. Know the strengths and weaknesses of your people.

2. Delegate the work according to those strengths and weaknesses.

3. Juggle the work to accommodate vacations, sick days, etc.

4. Establish training as necessary to accommodate growth for your people. Help them get better.

5. If there’s too much work for your people to reasonably handle, then by all means, jump in and help lighten their load.

6. If there’s too much work for everyone to handle, then discuss it withyour supervisor. Ask for more help. Ask for more time. But stick up for your people.

7. Whatever else might be necessary depending on individual circumstances.

8. Go home and take two aspirin.

It seems the definition of engineer and manager change with every company, and often within companies between departments.

Without knowing the specific duties and responsibilities of both the tech support team and the manager of the tech support team it is not possible to give a valid opinion on your particular circumstances.

Which way do you want your career to go?

Do you want to move into management, or stay an engineer.

Many times, the start of the management track is to make an informal leader a group manager.
You spend your days bouncing back and forth between the 2 disciplines until the management duties consume your entire day.

Part of this, is to see how you handle the dual roles and responsibilities. Managers often need to make on the spot role transitions every day.

The better you can handle role changes, the better a manager you will be.

Chas

Delegation is surly a good idea; But switching between the two, when needed, seems to also be important in order to off load my staff and satisfy my management too! But doing it to often will divert my focus from management duties like competence development, customer relations, etc!