5 things a learned as a manager

Backstory

For a big part of my programming career, I was a freelancer and developed android and Node.js applications. I worked alone for a long time. Then I found a job as a JavaScript developer in team in office. Tasks were set from above, and all that was required of me was to complete what fell into my backlog. My work life was pretty good. But then came that terrible moment, when boss called me to himself and said:

“Do you want to become a team lead?”.

So, I said: “yes”, and became a manager/developer.
In this article I will tell you about things, that I, as a manager, started to appreciate in subordinates, and what qualities and deeds distinguish a good employee from a bad one, for me personally, and what you should not ever do.

Do not take tasks, take responsibility

What is the difference? I will provide you an example with a coffee machine. Imagine how you woke up in the morning, and you morning ritual included a cup of coffee and taking a shower. So, you as always went to your coffee machine, pressed the button and headed to take a shower. Upon arrival, you found the coffee machine was turned off, with blinking error – no beans – on its display. You filled the beans bank in the coffee machine and went iron your clothes. Upon return, you hadn’t seen a cup full of coffee, only error – no water. You filled water bank, pressed start button and stayed to control all the process. As a result, you had a bad mood and might be late for work.
A coffee machine takes the task to make a coffee. But if there won’t be enough coffee beans or water, it won’t fill its container with water or coffee beans. It will skip the task because it’s impossible to complete: no water, no beans etc.
Now imagine that you had a barista on your kitchen. You had told him to make a coffee then headed to take a shower. Barista noticed, that coffee beans ran out and instead of skipping the task, he ran to the nearest shop to buy the coffee beans.
As a result, you had a coffee and most importantly on time. Barista took the responsibility. He wouldn’t stop even he hadn’t something. He would solve all incoming problems until the task was done. Because, he took the responsibility to make the job, and if it wasn’t done, he would be the one to blame.
Take responsibility – not tasks.
Don’t be a coffee machine. Be a barista. Employee, that takes a responsibility, is noticeable immediately. He’s much more valuable than the rest.

Don't be late

First thing, that comes to the boss's mind when he sees an employee is being late: "Does he even need this work?". If an employee is late regularly, most likely he is not interested in his work. He won't be ready to spend more time on it. So, why then this employee should be promoted, to get a boss that is always late? Similarly, when employees see their boss is late, they think to themselves: "If my boss is late, why should I not be?". Even observing always late colleagues, employees start to be late too. As a result, discipline is shaking, quality of tasks is reduced, and work speed drops. Simple lateness left without attention can lead to problems in your collective.

Look good

I am rated by my skills, appearance does not matter, dress code is redundant. That is all wrong. Appearance is very important. And I don't mean expensive clothing or perfectly matching colours. I am talking about overall neatness. Take a shower regularly, wear clean and ironed clothes, use perfume, but not too much. If you have a suite, wear it sometime. If you always look good enough, so your boss can call you for a lunch anytime, this opens a lot of new possibilities.

If you accepted rules, follow them

In any developer team(not only developer), internal rules are set, in team contracts are created. All team members accept them and agree to follow them. Following these contracts is extremely important, and non-compliance leads to several serious problems. Firstly, other team members will no longer comply with the rules, that leads to decrease of overall productivity and general confusion, and may lead your team to the state when there were no contracts at all. Secondly, you will lose your reputation quickly, which is difficult to restore. Especially, if you don't follow the rules, that you offered.
Example:
Employee A did not like the way we did B, and he offered to create a rule C, and every team member agreed to follow the rule C. Later, your manager had noticed non-compliance by the employee A with the rule C, might be because of laziness or inefficiency of the rule. In this case, employee A fell into the "We have so match in team problems, that's why I did not have time to finish the work on time" category. All subsequent objections of A's will be viewed through the lens of mistrust and excuses.

Don't blame superior for your failure

May be it's subjective, but I learned it for myself personally. Usually, you, as an employee, get the tasks that belong to your professional field, and match your competencies. Putting the blame for failing tasks, that you took responsibility to complete, on superior employee is extremely unprofessional. When you are taking a task in work, make sure, that you are able to complete that one on time. If given time is not enough, tell this to the manager that gave you the task and tell why. Thus, you will reduce the risk of being late for completing the task. Make sure, that you have everything you need to accomplish the task. Often, employees are too lazy to analyze incoming tasks, and estimate needed time. That’s why I often hear people blame someone for failing a task by quality or by time. Complaining about lack of certain resources, but on the task setting stage this employee said, that he or she had all the required resources and understood everything.
Analyze incoming tasks before taking responsibility to complete them. Notify your boss if you are missing something, because this is your tasks and your responsibility.

Conclusion

When I had become a manager, I started to view work things completely different, to look at everyday tasks from a different angle. I saw value in actions that previously considered a waste of time. If your boss asks you to write reports at the end of the day or to estimate needed time in a task’s comments, and you think these tasks are time wasting. Find out why you should do this, most likely this tasks are important for your manager, and they should be done regularly.
I told you 5 things that, I noticed after becoming a manager and working on this position for a while. I hope, my writings will be useful and help you working in team.