Apple makes incredible products, but their teenage angst corporate temper tantrums are vomit inducing. Might be time to vote with my dollar on other tech.
^ THIS. Where I’ve worked, there has been a severe degradation over time of actual leaders, and an increase in managers who have no clue how to lead or inspire.
One thing I have oriented myself to doing is being a servant leader. As I told one team I led, “I’m your bitch. Tell me where your rocks are and I’ll move them out of the way so you can get your work done.” And then I do exactly that. I’ve had to work miracles sometimes but I can usually clear the path.
I detest micro management in every conceivable way, but I do believe in accountability and ensuring the work is done on time by the team with no surprises. This has worked well for me.
>As I told one team I led, “I’m your bitch. Tell me where your rocks are and I’ll move them out of the way so you can get your work done.”
Great mindset and thoughts, but I hope this isn't what you actually said. I'd also like to point out serving someone or some thing doesn't make you a bitch.
If this is your whole mindset, in what sense are you a leader? The person who moves rocks out of the way of the path for the army to march on generally isn't the leader; the leader is the guy (it's always a guy) telling people which rocks to move.
I'm not dunking on you; maybe you aren't a servant-leader, but rather just a servant. That's a great way to be: a servant of "the mission" (replace with whatever term keeps the contents of your stomach down).
At the risk of sounding glib, in "startup world" (the sector of the tech industry characterized mostly by companies between 100-1000 people large) there are two career tracks:
(1) The track you get on by demonstrating viability in roles of escalating seniority, such as by leaving a Sr. Manager job for a Director job.
(2) The track you get on by having an easily observable or articulable track record of getting important (or at least interesting) things done.
Ruthlessly working "track 1" may rule out "serving" a team (and at the same time rationalizing that by avoiding that "trap" you're "serving" the broader company mission), but that mindset practically rules out progression on "track 2".
> Will your next workplace value all the effort you spent that way?
I'd hope so - as it's reasonable to assume that a next role for someone already managing/leading would involve more management/leadership. So yes, skills/achievements/examples in that area should be valued.
> Are the servant tasks even what you want to spend your time with?
It's probably not for everyone; but if someone doesn't want to perform the tasks that (many would say) are necessary to be a good manager/leader, maybe they shouldn't be in a manager/leader position in the first place?
This is a strange comment. Everyone in a corporate structure is a servant. How you advance is by demonstrating that you are helping solve the problems deemed important by your chain of command. Theoretically this should be aligned from top to bottom; in practice competing priorities, communication overhead, and incompetence in the wrong places can greatly distort things. This reality leads a lot of folks into learned helplessness, and social climbers gaming the chaos to gain power they are not equipped to handle.
The mentality "what's in it for me" is toxic and shows one is not ready for higher level management in a large org where cooperation is necessary to do anything interesting. Better questions are "is my team working on the right thing?", "does my team have the right skills to deliver on that thing?", "what relationships do we need to succeed?", and last but definitely not least "is my manager competent enough to provide the support I need for my team to be successful?". The last question is the key one: you won't grow if you are reporting to a muppet.
Thanks for your measured response. You're right that it's not inherently toxic to think of yourself. The reason I reacted that way is because that mentality (whether explicit or not) is what leads to operating in a very transactional way or empire-building fashion that works against good outcomes in the long-term.
I honestly don't think being too selfless is an adequate explanation for career stagnation though. Selfless behavior will generally help you get ahead in life and in your career, because good relationships matter a lot. However you won't get promoted just because you help everyone. What if you are just servicing the squeaky wheels rather than solving the biggest problem on your plate? A good manager will only look to promote you because you have demonstrated you are capable of solving larger problems. There are other things too: like the business actually has the need for a higher level role. If that's the case, then your behavior is irrelevant—you just need to leave to someplace that does have the growth opportunity.
Overall the reason I said your comment was strange is because it clearly comes from some personal experience you had, but it lacks enough context to be actionable to anyone who reads it. I can think of a dozen different ways I've seen a "servant leader" mentality succeed or fail, but it all depends very much on context. Ultimately if you want to succeed you need to understand what game is being played and not fallback to abstract platitudes.
Yeah maybe management path was not for me, but after a while I couldn't shake the feeling of having "santas little helper" on my business card. When the people I managed were the people that were valued in the organization, and having all the job opportunities. (I am out of that now after cleaning my CV with a few years of IC and managing a smaller team)
But of course YMMV and all that. I am not saying don't, I am saying do - think about it first.
Lecture prep. Much of my teaching I have to convey accurate definitions of terminologies and give real world examples. ChatGPT etc speeds this process up.
I have no faith in any of Google’s endeavours lasting. When you sign up for any Google service, you’re essentially a human lab rat with the odds being the service will be unceremoniously cancelled. I’ve developed the “anything but Google” mentality with this in mind.
It is silly how blindly they handle these cancellations. Not necessarily in a "wow I can't believe they cancelled so many things" sense but a "they don't really try to clearly distinguish services they are more serious about vs ones they are less serious about". Out of all the products I'd guess Google is serious about keeping long term none of them really have any messaging that's the case so when things like Pixel Pass get cancelled it hurts trust in everything.
If you're really lucky, they'll sell the product to someone else and then you get to have a relationship with a new company (like google domains). That seems to be the very rare exception though and you should expect to have to find your own replacement for any Google service you use because it's unlikely to last very long.
Only reason I currently pay on the lowest ad-supported tier is for language learning purposes. The overall content is lacklustre and I have absolutely no loyalty to Netflix. Completely disposable.
I have absolutely no sympathy for the airlines. As I write this, I’m in the process of suing a well-known Canadian airline for lying about conditions leading to a flight cancellation. Unfortunately this is not a rare occurrence based on the forum I participate in.
Point being, they can shove their terms and conditions. They can start by following the law.
Completely disagree. I recall within the first few chapters using the line “How am I supposed to do that?” on a crazy exec I worked with, which had them reflect on their ridiculous ask of me. They thought about the task some more and dropped it… like magic. Very practical book.
