Managing up is, in practice, 100% of a manager's job

Now this is in the US, but I've met and worked with numerous absolutely top quality teaching professors and they had a disproportionately positive impact on their students. Many of them were happy and well adjusted and did not seem in much more of a precarious position than any other person I've met working a job for a similar amount of money in a field they enjoy. Obviously, it depends on the college, how well compensated you are, etc. But as far as I can see, the only thing that's absolutely worthless is sticking a top tier professor in front of a class of undergrads and forcing them to teach a low level class while simultaneously splitting their attention between twenty other responsibilities.

> the best managers care primarily about politics and growing their personal stake in the organization So fundamentally gross that this is true.

> In practice the best managers care primarily about politics and growing their personal stake in the organization. This is fine, and expected of senior management. > I've found that the more clueless they are the better (just don't point that out). This is toxic. Management at the senior level of these organisations has been completely detached from the activities on the ground. A healthy functional organisation should have senior managers that understand the complete stack of layers, but especially at the level where the value is being generated they need to fully understand.

I am intrigued by your comment but a little confused as well, could you elaborate? What do you mean by ‘best manager’? Is that one who’s valuable and good for the org, or one that’s good at getting raises and promotions for himself and nobody else? If it’s the former, I’d love to hear more about why being clueless is helpful. And what does one do if caught in the situation you describe of not ever being let into the fold? How do you manage up in that situation? Leave?

Even though I think you are right, I believe your expectations for what a guide should do is wrong. A set of norms and practices are usually encoded in manuals, whereas guides serve for general orientation. In this sense, I believe if the guide is well written, it could well serve as an orientation for what to expect in order to adapt as a manager.

> Managing down isn't actually that hard to get the hang of if you have strong technical skills and reasonable communications skills. But managing down is very similar to being a good teaching professor: absolutely worthless and largely done at your own peril. To your earlier point - even this is contextual. Incredibly high performing teams tend to be really hard to retain. It's not that hard to make your bosses love you if you're posting wildly out of band results - so the struggle is making sure the people who are actually making that happen stay on and stay engaged. (I'll note that some of the most successful managers I know built their career on creating playgrounds for a small number of high performing ICs)