In this article the author is trying to differentiate between a project manager and a team manager. He is trying to pinpoint the structural and regular promotion system to promote an associate as a manager, and trying to provide a simple solution for the same.
Dear Mates, before I start explaining my view on this, I would like to apologies to managers/leads present in different industries who got this designation as a part of structural & regular promotion but not due to their managerial skill set.
We most of them are either part of government or private sector, associated with an organization, and for sure we have a manager/lead whom we report to, and he assigns and evaluates our task/activities. This model is common everywhere and definitely I have no problem with this model. In fact I appreciate this model, where manager would be available to take the responsibility/ownership for his team mistakes, help to remove any obstacles/impediments, getting involved with team activities to boost them, etc.
wait... I said wait...
Does it happen actually?
Are you really feel good about your manager?
Do your manager really protects you?
I know 2 out of 10 may say 'yes' for above questions, but most of them are actually unhappy and disappointed with the management and adjusting there, as running job is important. Now people may advice that leave the place since you are not liking the management but changing the job will never guarantee that your answer would be 'yes' later.
So where is the problem, Why most of us hate our managers?
Actually we won't hate our managers, in fact we all wanted to have a good bonding with our manager, we listen them carefully and follow/implement their advises. Still managers are unpredictable with their associates.
The reason is pretty simple and if I will say from heart - I can say that these managers are incapable and don't have right skill set to be a manager. These managers were not able to manage their-self when they were an individual contributor. So it would be really difficult for them to manage and make happy to their associates.
Now a million dollar question comes that why they got promoted as a manager?
This is very unfortunate to say that, most of the organizations gives promotions on the basis of candidate's number of years of experience, and first side it looks pretty right as we all learn and grow by experience. Honestly speaking I am not against this promotion culture as even I believe that experience is the main driver and I myself getting more better with experiences.
wait...
Even I have a great belief in this culture, I can smell something bad ...
Don't mind, if you couldn't, let me facilitate the same bad smell to you.
An intern from ABC institute has joined XYZ organization, obviously he will be thrilled and excited about his first job and would like to put more than hundred percent to fulfill his dream. Undoubtedly we all were went with this phase and know well about a freshers wings. The guy got appointed as a web developer after successful internship.
Now assume that five years later the same guy got promoted as a team lead where he got a small team to manage, say 5 member team. I am sure that he would be an expert web developer after 5 years of experience, and probably right candidate for Tech Lead, and that would be okay as he got expertise and can guide a team.
But where he got the expertise to lead a team?
Obviously not, very few organizations educate/trained to their associates to become a future lead/manager. But in most of the organization there is no such training/education and still an associate is getting promoted as a lead/manager. These kind of managers would be incapable to play the responsibilities nicely.
Most of you may argue that, generally managers are PMP, PRINCE2, etc. certified so they are eligible to be a good manager. I completely disagree here, as these certifications ensures that you know and understand the project management processes and I have seen that these certified managers behave like a parrot as they simply prepare to crack the exam, so they know the processes but won't understand them, which produces horrible managers sometime.
That is the reason most of the associates leaves the organization frequently and very famous phrase about the same - "People leave managers not companies"
So in short after getting these certifications an associate may be a project lead, project manager and for sure he should not be considered as a team lead/ team manager as I firmly believe that project management and team management are two different activities.
So who should be a Team Manager?
A team manager should be appointed by a committee not just by a skip level manager, and that committee should have some scale to judge, for his interpersonal skill, people management skill, brainstorming capabilities, any management related certification should be plus, etc. The committee should be an independent group of senior managers and should be changed frequently.
I hope this kind of culture can produce good managers and we all start loving them!!!