HN Reader

Peter Drucker wrote that the most important thing a manager could have was 'character'. I've asked myself "What is character?", and the best answer I've come up with is: "The willingness to do the right thing regardless of negative consequences to oneself." When I look at myself, I don't believe I have character. I want to be liked too much, and in my emotional core, I'm frightened. I don't think I'm alone in this. I think a lot of people in managerial roles have little or no character, and are unwilling to take on the monster of 'the system', whatever that means in their context, because in general their superiors don't want to hear the bad news a manager with character might deliver. I've worked for managers who were complicit in hiding the dilution of stock options; who failed to push back on higher-management policies that were eroding the morale of their subordinates; who failed to be straight with subordinates about things they could improve; Who accepted ridiculous schedule demands on their teams, allowing death marches. You've probably got many examples of your own.

I wish there were some easy solution to this problem, but I don't see one. I do recommend the NASA document "What Made Apollo A Success". https://ntrs.nasa.gov/citations/19720005243

> "It’s the performance of ‘care’ from leadership. Saying one thing loudly and proudly, yet doing another quietly, repeatedly."

It's the employee engagement survey where you want people to say that the company cares about you, and first line managers get in trouble from the results but executive leadership does not. It's the cognitive dissonance that you expect us to just deal with.

It's the lack of communication when people are fired. There's no good way to fire people, but there sure are bad ways and you've found them.

It's the times that I've told my boss about issues I'm dealing with and those issues show up in my end of year review instead of working on them together.

“Burnout isn’t a sign of commitment, it’s a sign of organizational failure.”

Exactly, if you need more bandwidth hire more people, otherwise you’re burning the candle at both ends and everything suffers for it

As a side point, some people here seem to think this post specifically came from 24 contributors. The text at the bottom seems to indicate this and I initially got the same feeling.

However, that's actually a description of the site itself, not the post. There are 24 essays, one per contributor.

> In the end, good leadership is never proven by what you say about yourself. It’s proven by what people say when you’re not in the room.

> And trust me, they’re talking.

Some of the people I’ve had to railroad into things say stuff like, “well this is the first I’ve heard about it.” That’s a You Problem.

The fact that nobody is discussing this with you should tell you that you’ve been cut out of the loop for being impossible to negotiate with. It’s absence of evidence not evidence of absence.

> I hope you learn that if you focus on making money instead of the team lining your pockets, you will end up with a broken team and no money.

Very much this. If you don't actually care about us, don't expect us to care about you or your company or the work. You're going to be left with automatons rather than creative, energetic people (even if the bodies haven't changed).

And the fact is that automatons don't make the line go up nearly as well as people who care. So the really ironic thing is, if all you care about is money, then you better care about the team. And not just care with lip service, but really care.

My current job has problems, but I'll give them this: When I wound up in the ER the weekend before a business trip, nobody was worrying about the effect on the trip.

You know, watching Mad Men, it seems to be that work culture hasn't changed since the 50s. The same fake smiles, the same small talk, the same boss's favorite getting the credit. What's really changed since then?

Let's not assume bygone days ever were what we think they were.

The gap between performative care and actual leadership seems to be getting wider, and companies still act shocked when turnover spikes or teams quietly disengage. What the author describes isn't some dramatic abuse, it's the slow erosion of trust

This year I started to have the background ideas popping up in my mind about a future where societies put care as the main goal.

More precisely "la société du soin" comes to my mind. It's a bit different as in french the term as a very large semantic network. Sure care is the closest general translation.

Anyway, we really are making much more progresses on technological side than on relevant careful social organisation, human inter-help, environmental and moral sides.

Technology is easier to track continuously with proxy metrics which regularly move up some scale. In many other areas, tracking can be more an hindrance, an inhibitor or even a cause of total extinction.

I think y'all (i.e. who've contributed anonymously to the article), have taken these words too literally. I think we're finally seeing the culmination of around 15+ years (post '08) of leadership mindset finally reap its rewards.

Over the last decade (last 3+ decades realistically, I'm around 35, so that's all my personal anecdotal data goes back to), these "leaders" have all thrown away the facade of "mentorship", "leadership" and all those heavy words.

It's replaced with one phrase, "Profit at any cost". So that means, if you got yours, you're good. If you didn't, see ya! All this is obviously reflected geopolitically (macro-level), so why are we so surprised when it's affecting us at the micro-level?

This is a quote from a really good TV series (called Smiley's people), delivered by George Smiley (Alec Guinness):

`In my time, Peter Guillam, I've seen Whitehall skirts go up and come down again. I've listened to all the excellent argument for doing nothing, and reaped the consequent frightful harvest. I've watched people hop up and down and call it progress. I've seen good men go to the wall and the idiots get promoted with a dazzling regularity. All I'm left with is me and thirty-odd years of cold war without the option.`

So, it's not been out of the norm in our times to watch our own backs. No one is watching ours, the workers, the talent. Moscow rules gentlemen.

I know this will sound a bit cynical, but I've stopped putting too much care into my employer's product. I'll deliver work and perform my best, but I'm not killing myself over it.

I've built viable products where I poured my soul into it just for it to be tossed aside [0]. I've optimized processes that went from 12 hours job to 17 minutes, I was fired shortly after [1]. I even wrote on HN to get advice when I felt I cared more about my work and colleagues [2]. Instead, my boss was promoted and I was scrutinized.

So when I work with a boss that doesn't care and is mostly performative, unless we are building a product that makes the world a better place, I don't put too much heart into it. I make sure they pay me for my time, and I look for a better job.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42806948

[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38456429

[2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21766903

It's insane to me that this even needs to be written – showing you care is just not that hard! And it absolutely doesn't have to come at the expense of business goals.

I've had some amount of success running a startup, and honestly the only thing that reliably paid off was hiring great (i.e., smart, thoughtful, kind) people and treating them like family.

I’m just glad to see more folks realizing the same things I’ve suffered through for much of my career. If anything, I wish my own bosses would read these words (and many more) to understand why I’m so withdrawn, so angry, so tired.

Being a leader means a constant confrontation with choosing political or organizational consequences to a decision. If all you’re doing is operating politically, your reward will always be burned out, tired, and frustrated workers who, for once, want you to do what’s in the best interests of your own organization rather than your personal political advantage. At least until a better political player than you outmaneuvers your ass, because you gave them room for growth in an organization that rewarded such behaviors.

Workers just want to do good work, make good things, get paid good money, and go home. If your decision-making as a boss regularly imperils or impairs those things, you suck as a boss.

> You can’t fake care. People feel it. In small moments, in the gaps between your words, in the way you prioritise your business over their wellbeing

This resonates with me. I've seen way too much of this "performative" care. It's pretty grating when they start sounding like therapists: "tell me how you're feeling, this must be pretty upsetting, huh?". Or, "do you need any help?" and I'd be honest and say something like - "yeah, sure, someone could assist with x, y, z", -"oh, unfortunately, we don't have anyone available". They know there is nobody there to help yet they feel like they've ticked their check-mark of showing "care".

This is one of those "you're fly is open". People can see and smell the fakeness a mile a way. There are certainly worse qualities and maybe some people enjoy this "therapeutic" approach but it's certainly not a universally better thing and shouldn't become the default. If the care is just not there I'd rather it be just plain and simple without the extra fake fluff.

Its amazing that working is so inhumane and unnatural that people break down like this. There is is nothing you can do except suck it up and create mental barriers to protect your self while participating this weird game of white collar work.

> You can’t fake care. People feel it.

My company went through executive changes, layoffs, etc. I thought it was VERY clear that our senior manager handled the situation extremely poorly. At least a few people agreed with me, so imagine my shock when several others not only defended him but joined his next company.

I am reminded of that when people assume "interpersonal dynamics are obvious to all involved", which is often.

Wow, brilliantly written. It's been a long time since I've read something I identify so personally with. Bravo.

My 'boss' was an absolute pyschopath who was a direct cause in my, let's just say, poor mental health over a period of years. I'd rather say not say anything to them ever again, but horrible interactions with them replay in my mind constantly. Imagine spending thousands of hours doing your best to make someone happy just to be treated like the worst piece of garbage who ever existed. That's what my 'boss' was like.

"In the end, good leadership is never proven by what you say about yourself. It’s proven by what people say when you’re not in the room."

The Whatsapp corollary is if your team has a separate chat group without you in it, you should look at your leadership style.

If a good leader is somebody who consistently sets a good example, and is willing to sacrifice personally for their team, I don't think there are very many out there. The problem is that companies still need "leaders" the same way TV stations need programming.

If an company decides to invest some money in the pursuit of an opportunity, some managers might get hired or promoted, and the company isn't going to scour the earth for genuinely good leaders. They'll post a job, take a few interviews then promote the person who was going to get it anyway, or hire somebody who looks the part. Generally, one shouldn't take middle-managers seriously.

I don't need my boss to care about me. I need them to care about the team succeeding, and the mission I signed up to.

I need them to show some very baseline decency and honesty so that I can somewhat trust what they say. I need them to not drive their own career at the expense of the company or team.

If the company needs to do layoffs, I want them to pick the right people to stay, to have a good shot at still doing a good job, not pick emotionally.

You don't have to care about people to understand it's better to not burn them out. Staff turnover is expensive and bad for the team performance. Quality and innovation starts suffering long before people implode.

These are good solid points.

For the care issue, I don't know how I would scale it.

For my direct reports, I care, because I have yet to have take the MBA course where they remove my empathy. Its easy to know how they feel because I have the context.

However, should I be good enough, or lucky enough to climb up the greasy pole and have reports with reports, I don't know how I would be able to scale the attention required to provide valid pastoral care to those reportees.

Large forums only really allow the extrovert, confident, brave or stupid to over supply their opinions. So its not like a group monthly meeting will allow those grumbles to be surfaced before a crisis.

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum

All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is constant pressure to make people feel that they are helpless, that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions and to consume.

The whole educational and professional training system is a very elaborate filter, which just weeds out people who are too independent, and who think for themselves, and who don't know how to be submissive, and so on — because they're dysfunctional to the institutions.

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

― Noam Chomsky

Burnout and disagreeing with leadership are something we all deal with. But don't quit your job folks. It's a real rookie move. Unless you have something rock solid lined up, you will become radioactive to any potential employers, and idealism doesn't pay the mortgage.

These are all true but, to phrase it in SV-speak: having good, sincere management does not scale. We would all be better off with better managers, but if we are really serious about treating workers with respect at scale, unions are the only proven solution.

As with all issues of power abuse, the real question is: "what are you going to do about it?"

If the answer from the workers is an overwhelming "nothing", then there's no reason to change.

And I am not blaming workers. Bills need to be paid, mouths need to be fed. Staying low and taking it might be better than speaking up and risking homelessness.

Please tell me how I am wrong, I struggle to see how the situation could improve.

Things I want to say to past and future bosses:

>If you hire your own prodigal child, I'm quitting effective immediately.

May we both suceed in our future untogetherness.

Posts like this make me appreciate my boss.

I've been very lucky to work for some great people, even/especially when the situation above them is borked.

Just more evidence that eng managers (not product managers) and the myriad layers of executives are a waste of time and money. Engineers don't need babysitting. They don't need titles and they don't need someone running interference if people just leave them the fuck alone.

Give them a product goal and they will accomplish it. Tell them what you want to track and they'll figure out how to track it. Tell them what your long term vision is and they'll set you up for it.

Let us do our work and we'll do it well. Stop micromanaging engineers and stop telling us how, and instead, tell us what. This is software: it doesn't take a ton of people to make a product that's profitable. Stop burning capital on useless people.

Attitude matters. How ambitious or timid were you? And, are we so helpless?

id love to see these people lead a team whilst sticking to their own advice

OP, your boss seems so cute compared to mine.

I love the design of this website, especially having the body text on the right, but I find the website looks a lot better zoomed out to 80%.

But they don't care. And I don't care. What I care about is my coworkers and boss doing their jobs with talent and integrity so we don't go out of business and I can afford to keep my home and don't have to go through the disgusting job search hoops that are required in my profession.

To the author: You have thought about your boss likely 100x more than he ever thought about you.

Don't do him this favor. You are giving him too much power that way.

And be sure that he forgot about you, like COMPLETELY, maximum 72 hours after you were let go. Do the same. Take your lessons, internalize them, and forget the source. Be like an LLM: have the right conclusion inside your brain after the source material is long gone and thrown out.

Move on.

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I am in my 40s and just now I am beginning to start understanding only a part of the dynamics involved in companies. But the TL;DR is that executives want to shine and look better, always. They only care about an ever-increasing compensation _and_ bonuses. They care not about the company's long-term success.

If you are in the way of that -- with your pesky technical stability and less resource usage, being one example -- then you are an inconvenience and will be removed. They want people who help them look better to their upper echelons.

That's just one example.

From here on my playbook will be to attend more executive meetings when I start a job, and get a feel of who does what and what are their goals -- and make sure I at least don't stand in the line of the fire when sh1t hits the fan. And will always have something else lined up even if I love my current team to bits. Simply because the said said team has exactly zero say if I get to stay or get booted out simply because somebody two levels above wants a promotion and my salary is making it look like they spend too much.

(I remember how much I regretted losing one job some three years ago. I loved everyone there but I had a terrible health condition and couldn't perform. But you know what? The guy who was practically doing 80% of everything there, all the time, got fired a year and half after me. Reason? Product is done and delivered, we don't need you anymore, nevermind that we get feature requests and the occasional bug reports all the time.)

"Nothing personal. Just business."

Well, two can play at that game. Wish me luck. I want my heart to harden. I want to stop caring. I want to learn to preserve my caring for the things that truly excite me about technology.

I might fail. But I am very quickly learning the game and I will adapt.

I wish OP does the same.

Something I _should_ have said to my boss, and their boss the CEO:

"Shut up for 5 minutes and listen:

You have been repeating the same things for a full year, yet nothing is different or better. This is because while the message has been consistent, if vacuous, your weekly changes in direction prevent any initiatives from being successful. We won't become a "Billion Dollar Company" running like squirrels on a highway. Pick a plan, and stick with it. Grow 10% each fiscal year instead of hoping to grow 10X in a single leap.

In other words, grow up."

Abject narcissism is rewarded time and time again. I think this is, at its core the problem in and of itself.

I truly believe that capitalism is the best possible system of financial discourse for the most people. I also believe that anti-trust and regulatory bodies have a responsibility to ensure competition at a very core level. I don't think govt should be picking winners and losers and in fact, I feel we should expressly format any govt contracts such that there are multiple suppliers. This should go towards all essential infrastructure, bar none.

I also feel that govt should act in terms of a somewhat protectionist front in favor of its own peoples. I think it comes down to real negotiation to keep it that way, but that trying to be fair is only a recipe for long term failure.

Given the inflation of the past couple years, the push to stagnate wages for white-collar work is a bit repugnant at best. The push to stagnate blue collar work is worse still. This can and will only lead to more unionization. One can only hope for a combination of local-focus and worker-lead efforts to stabilize (rebalance) the economy. I say this not in support of socialist efforts, but to keep them at bay, lest we succumb to communism in the longer term, which at a global level will stagnate society as a whole.

this has ai writing smell all over it. entire paragraphs that just say it's-not-this-it's-that over and over again