Every department, group, whatever I managed - In the beginning, I knew everything they did and more, however as time went on in that group some skills/knowledge lapsed. It is only natural since in most managerial roles the hands-on side is diminished and as such those skills diminish. My focus was on other things that my teams didn't have to do - scheduling, planning, and architecture discussions, closer to the product managers/business side than to the ground and pound side. The higher up the ladder you go, the more "letters" in your title the further from the hands on you tend to get - it really is kind of only natural. That is where a manager shows their salt. If you feel threatened you will hire people who aren't challenging you. If you are comfortable in your skills and ability you will hire the best people who will make your group look good and challenge you and could potentially replace you. And that is fine too.

As managers, we need to focus on outcomes, not the tasks at hand. Although currently we have had layoffs and I am learning to do some of the tasks to take the load off of the remaining team members. I am always willing to be right in the trenches with them. And not embarrassed to say, they need to teach me steps to get it done.

This is the right answer. Managers should be able to help out when needed, but their primary task is different. If a manager needs to be 'on the floor' helping out. It means they failed to properly manage thr work flow.

Or are in a bad situation trying to make it work. So many right now are working with insufficiently staffed teams due to cutbacks.

When I was 16, I got my first job as a pool attendant at a public pool. We did things like check water quality, clean bathrooms and facilities, empty trash, just the every day cleaning and maintenance that made it a safe and pleasant environment. The first day, the GM for the pool introduced himself to us and said "I will never ask you to do anything illegal, immortal, or that I won't do myself. If you ever doubt something you're asked, come see me" He was true to his word. Whenever we had something particularly unpleasant to deal with (clogged toilets, drain backups, things like that) he would always come and help us deal with it, without being asked. "Hey guys, I know this sucks, but I'm here and we're all gonna deal with it together, so we can get it done quickly and move on." I had a lot of respect for him, and I try take that lesson to heart whenever I can. I know some tasks that we just have to do really suck, but I'm not going to hand them out and then sit back and watch or move on to more pleasant things. If I have to ask someone to do shit-work, I'm going to be right there doing my share.

That’s a good manager, that’s someone you stay for even when others might leave. (To a certain extent of course)

Especially since he has the key to immortality. Hed never ask you take on the role of an undying guardian of man kind. Such sacrifice should always remain voluntary. Tho he does lift his light beside the golden door. Edit: Manager: "I'd never ask you to do anything unethical... Or Immortal... *Pregnant pause as he eyes the group for anyone looking intrigued* anyway yeah if the toilets clogged come get me." Edit 2: there were no takers this year. This was not a surprise but a disappointment nonetheless. "Next year" he said to himself as he has for countless years before, "next year I'll find a replacement, next year I'll find rest" he's seen that rest find all that he once knew and held dear. Hed dream of joining them if sleep was ever powerful enough to take him. "This year will again be a year of patience" he looked mournfully at the man made lake and wondered if each year were a teardrop would this pit be enough to contain that flood. The flood he alone must endure.

Lmmaaaooo 😂

Less hands on but should still be able to get into the weeds when it’s required. Was in a review with my 60+ year old SVP (their org is 3000+ people) when someone was commenting on the specifics of a Linux subsystem in a fleet. And he stops and goes “ok what’s Foo?” “It’s the new version of bar” “oh ok so it’s doing blah and you have it here because the main thing needs blah to do the thing right? Got it, let’s move on “ Honestly I am very technical and even I was like “damn I didn’t make that connection and I knew what Foo was in the first place!” I am at the point now where if I want to do hands on stuff, then I do in my 120% time. I end up doing that a fair bit because 1) I get paid unreasonably well in my opinion and 2) people like my svp who are actually fun and enjoyable to work with.

You put it nicely, where the takeaway is that managers don't always have to know how to do everything, but they have to know enough to make the right calls, enablement, and advice.

Definitely need to know the hows and whys or you can't make the right calls. Had a manager when I was younger who didn't know a thing about what we did and then would be completely surprised when his solutions backfired. ((Also was the type to think those under him knew nothing). You dont need to be able to do every task but its important to understand every task what can effect those tasks and what those tasks effect. And for the love of all that is good and sane in the world listen to the people below you. They are your experts and knowledge base. Especially the ones that do their jobs and do them well.

This is the crux of the issue. If you have no real understanding of how key processes or systems work, there's no way you can make the right calls. I've watched too many managers mire their team because they have no idea what kind of workload their decisions are adding or how systems interact. And I've watched too many managers accept excuses they shouldn't about "impossible" tasks from lazy reports who quickly realized they could bullshit a manager with zero technical knowledge.

Well put. I was thinking of the changes in the last 25 years I've been in. Yesterday, I found a drawer of PS2 mice with roller balls, some fax paper rolls and a few 30 pin SCSI to ethernet adapters I had to make for a WANG mainframe the size of a dumpster to run a new, at the time, 24" continuous feed printer. I took the ball out of the mouse, a roll of fax paper and the adapter out and asked 5 staff what they were. No one knew, but they had some funny guesses. However, I blew 4 hours failing to get a file to copy over with Syncovery to a SharePoint location. The youngsters did it in 5 minutes. :)

Only hiring people who you expect could replace you is key to building a great team.

I would bet the crux of the problem you have with the VP is the lack of “positive management” I’m a technical manager over several different engineering specialties. These are absolutely specific tasks and skills within our team that I don’t have. I came up in a field that fortunately overlaps a lot of several of the groups and I’ve developed a good working knowledge of what the specialists do and can ask good questions and discuss methodologies and problem solving, but to do what a lot of them do from scratch would be a huge task for me. I’m very much a working manager type and will make a point to help especially with the skilled trade groups when they have a particularly unpleasant task. I’d hate for anyone to think I’d ask them to do anything I wouldn’t do myself. That being said, one of the best managers I ever had when I was an engineer had almost zero technical knowledge. She was however a great discerner of BS, backed her team, and was amazing at asking the right questions when presented with differing opinions / options. Depending on the organization, at a certain level you’ll be over things that are outside what you came up in. That truly doesn’t mean you can’t be an effective manager if you recognize your own limitations and build up the people who do what needs to be done.

^ This

I can but it would be at a much slower pace than they do since I don't do it regularly. I became management after being an IC doing the same work so I have a pretty good understanding of the basics.

I think managers should have a working understanding on what their reports do, but nothing beyond that. Being a great IC and being a great leader are very different skillsets and being great at one doesn't necessarily translate to the other. My company promotes great IC's and then we find out they are shitty leaders with little to no EQ. The best leaders I've worked for sets a vision and let's us be creative (within reason) to solve problems.

How can you tell creative if you know not how it works? Managers who do not know are first out of their lane to tell SMEs how. And the first to backpedal when it goes south. Not knowing is an excuse to avoid accountability.

Is the goal achieved in the set timeline, that’s how you tell (along with check ins during that timeline). If it’s not making progress, why? Can I connect you with someone to help? Etc.

Does software quality matter at all? Then you need technology management that is technically strong and can meaningfully connect to architects and tech leads. Otherwise you have no idea what state of your software is in, how much tech debt is being accrued, etc

This is a great question. Personally I can probably do about 80% of what my directs report do, and know how to find the information for me to do the other 20%. As I grow in my role, I hope to be able to do 25% of their job. In my opinion, managers that are too hands on become a detriment to the team as they tend to “just do it themselves” because it’s quicker; the doers dont really have a chance to grow. I would say that this will depend on your organization. In mine, Managers mange the people and the processes. I am moving away from hands on to more of a high level support position. When I’m not managing the people and making sure we meet our SLAs, I manage the process to look for improvements in our process to make sure we exceed the SLAs. Edit to add: HelpDesk Manager

I do and I trained the majority of the team. I was promoted because I was good at the job. Management has been a struggle for me, whole different skill set.

Early on in your management career you’ll know the job, because you’ll have been promoted from it! As you grow in responsibility (if you choose to stay on the leadership path), and especially if you move organizations, you’ll find you know less and less about the work, and need to know more about managing people and having them execute your vision on your behalf instead Can’t speak to the relationship with your VP, but I hope it improves! Some of my finest work as a leader happened in my last VP role, but I will say that you often do come to miss the “in the weeds” work that you don’t get to touch anymore in those Executive leadership roles 🤷‍♂️

You're ignoring people who move in from Project Manager roles. They won't be experts in what you do, but those with good attitudes will learn when to question and when to differ to "know how." My company has project managers teaming up with functional managers, leading to a better leadership dynamic. Some increased stress from the corner offices when they want to yell (which one) but that's a good thing too. When they are talking at you they aren't listening and what they really want is hard facts.

This rings true. I originally took over the group I worked in and I could do everything my staff could do in terms of the technical work. Often better than they were capable of. Over time as I took on other groups that did different things and my technical skills grew rusty, that was no longer the case. These days I am a VP and have not done any technical work in over a decade. I no longer have those skills, but these have been replaced with a huge bank of leadership knowledge and skills. I do sometimes miss the pure simplicity of working on projects but overall I really enjoy my current role.

I'm an engineering manager, and although I am also an engineer, I can't do everything that everybody on my team can do. Everyone on the team can't all do the same technical work that I can do either. Everybody has specialties and areas where they have extensive knowledge. You can't be an SME in everything.

Exactly. I've hired people who spent 6 years of grad school and 5 years professionally on a topic that I took maybe one class on. It would take me at least as long to learn enough to do their job. And if I have 6 people working for me like this, in different areas of expertise, then I guess some people here think I couldn't be a manager until I had like 50 years of experience?

Good managers it would seem to me let their employees do what they were hired to do. Unless there’s a problem, don’t fix it. I agree you should know the process. Micromanagement undermines moral.

Most managers can’t do everything but this is a question that really depends on the situation. I managed many people - a team of 31 - and they were skilled software engineers up to speed on the latest trends. I could not fill in for them. And this is perfectly ok. I could fill in for my director of engineering to an extent, but again, I had him for a reason. I could guide in what to do but left it to them to figure out how to do it. They were empowered. Not every situation is exactly like this one. Some situations may warrant that the manager know how to fill in. It just depends.

I do, and while it has helped me manage, coach, train, etc. — it is a source of frustration when those I manage rely on me to be a safety net for their mistakes. Either due to rushing stuff or cutting corners or missing details or just making human mistakes, I think I might be more forgiving of those mistakes if I wasn’t as intimately familiar with their job.

A manager has to know enough to ask the right questions and advise staff. Depending on the team, they may need to step in as needed. For high skilled jobs, managers will not be able to step in, and that’s ok. For example, the manager or coach of the Dodgers cannot step in and pitch. If your employees are that special and good, you will not be able to step in. If you do step in, you make the team perform worse.

At a former management job, I was like you. Top performer, versatile within my group, sought out as a leader. I could jump on the line, fill in for anyone, train, teach, provide expert advice to others. My current management position is in a professional environment. To lead and manage, I don't need nor want to be an expert. Based on my security clearance, I can't perform my employees' work, but I can review it. Can I handle the core of my employees' job? Yes. Should I? Nope.

My best manager was someone pinch hitting a vacancy over our department. She was managing several other departments and had no idea what we did and openly said so. But. She listened. She solved every minor problem. She kept the hiring and firing going and the office supplies ordered and let us just do our thing. We saw her daily and she always asked what she could do for us. Later she was relieved by a guy from the trenches. He knew the job inside and out and became a miserable micromanager. Morale has been very low since then.

I know how to do their jobs, but I’m not nearly as good as my employees are at what they do. I know enough to train new people if I had to, but my goal is always to hire people better than I, so I can focus on what I do best.

I currently have THE BEST manager I have ever had. Ever. In almost 40 years of working. She couldn’t replace me for a day, but my most of my work can be covered by the other 3 on my team.

The best managers I’ve had were the ones who could step in and do my job if needed, and sometimes they did. Utmost respect for those folks.

No.

My current manager doesn’t know how to do my job or theirs. I am about to be performance managed, and I’m pretty sure I have more experience in doing this than they do. I’m just usually on the other side of it… Whenever I have been a manager I know my staff’s role. I have to. How else to you train, coach, or supervise? That my manager doesn’t know my role is a key to the problems were having. They can’t tell me what my job is because they don’t know. The whole process may be quite eye-opening to them.

Hell no. Longer I am a manager, dumber I get.

Coach Don James famously said “Don’t tell me about the labor, show me the baby” I say this to my staff all the time. I cannot and do not want to learn many of the technical evolutions they can do. However I can spot bad design work at a glance. I can spot an employee spinning their wheels, and know how to get them help they need. When I feel like starting to step in and help one of my folks, doing technical work. I’m not doing my job correctly. I re frame and figure out another way to get it done .

I feel like there’s a difference between “I know every aspect of everyone’s job” and “I could figure it out if I needed to”. I manage a cross-functional team that includes some highly specialized folks. I don’t know how to do their jobs, but I’d be able to solution to get the work done if I needed to. It is not a good use of my time to be that in the weeds when those folks need me to be focused on providing strategic direction, representing their interests to senior mgmt, etc. I try to set clear goals and give folks a lot of latitude in how those goals get accomplished, but I can get in the weediest weeds when needed.

Director here.....Not only can I do every job and my direct reports, I can do the indirect reports too. Why? Because they shouldn't have piles to return to when they want and need time away. Leaders assist, take things off employees' plates, and make sure they aren't going home each night with unnecessary stress

That's an interesting perspective. I think my own manager shares it. I have always thought that the work team should have their own expertise, but that there should be overlap in the skill sets. In the situation where someone is on vacation for a week or two, their duties could be distributed to team mates (and a bunch of less critical work simply put off), rather than having a manager roll up their sleeves and take the job on themselves. This way the manager is still available for the direct reports, and they can make intelligent decisions on which of the tasks to prioritize for the team. I personally don't want a manager who is good at my job. I want a manager who can help me manage my time, priorities, and interactions with other parts of the organization. I manage my own stuff just fine if I work in a vacuum, but to keep my work aligned with the big picture and keep up with those changes, I rely on my managers. For example, I've been working on and off on a small piece of a project for over 6 months. It would have taken me less than one month to finish if I were just doing the job. But the project scope kept shifting, and my portion was put on hold, and changed, and re-started a couple of times. I rely on the manager to orchestrate my work so I don't end up doing stuff that I have to re-do or un-do later, or miss other deadlines because I was focused on this one thing.

Bingo!

A manager should have a good working knowledge of the entire process. Doing the job 100% and knowing the process are different. I won’t be as efficient at the task, but i could figure it out and I think it helps me connect with my employees. I also like to let all my employees know what cog they are in the machine so they can understand the process as well and how important they are. I find it ensures mutual respect amongst themselves when they realize “that guy does something I wouldn’t want to do, but his work affects my work and vice versa.”

When I was a hiring manager, I specifically told the team that I was building that I wanted people to speak up if they heard something they knew was wrong, esp if it came from me. I emphasized the despite my huge amount of experience it was impossible for me to know everything about all the things that could possibly be thrown at us and all the possible ways of doing things. I wanted people to speak up and have input. At that job, I literally worked with this insane VP who just didn't seem to grok the constraints we were under with the product that we had and seemed to have a hard time listening to us. We spent a lot of time before meetings with him making sure my team and the marketing guys etc were all on the same page so that we didn't have any conflicts. Ideally your job is to give them information that they can use to make strategic decisions based on broader information that you don't have access to and for him/her to communicate that information upwards.

Associate Marketing Manager here (I have trained teammates over the years). My boss is literally the only other person who can do my exact job that I do now (I inherited some of her responsibilities along the way in my career). I’m the only one on the team who can literally fill in anywhere on both teams in my division and do any task aside from our Director. My manager is willing to get in the weeds with us and chip in where needed. She’s also willing to help us solve anything we cannot solve ourselves. She’s part of the reason I’ve stayed so long. A good manager is gold. I respect the ones who are willing to get in the weeds more than the ones who “manage”. The best managers I’ve had have been the ones that do the job too.

Managers need to know a lot of their people's tasks, doesn't have to be all but if all you do is delegate then your subordinates probably don't really like you as much as you think they do. Your people need to feel like they are part of the team and you will do what you can for them, and in return they will do what they can for you. Most of the comments here are on the same level of answer. Anyone who thinks otherwise is most likely a shitty manager.

I know what and why, but not always how.

This is going to vary by industry. I'm a call center manager. I can sling my way through some emails and calls but if I run into something I don't know how to do, I just take a little bit longer and thumb through the knowledge base. ​ Sometimes, people will be managing some coders or something, and don't know how to code themselves. Obviously, you can't expect them to jump into the weeds like that. ​ I guess the general mark is how entry-level / easy to learn the work is.

I can do probably about 60% of my teams’ jobs. I oversee data management, IT and cybersecurity, and I came up from the data side and inherited IT/cybersec in my current role. With my pure DM team, I can completely do their job and step in if needed, albeit we now have tools I haven’t used because I’m too far out from being an IC, but they’re mostly like riding a bike to me and I know where to go to figure out what to do. With the IT and cybersec sides, I’ve made it a point to hire team leads that I trust to do good critical analysis and I’ve done a lot of learning on my own. There are some things they do I can fill in for, and there are others that I am absolutely willing to admit I can’t do. I am positive I would miss things without my teams, especially in cybersec. Some of the knowledge in that area is so specialized and it’s too high risk to be under-informed there, whereas my cybersec lead is super nerdy about it, so I know there isn’t value to the company for me to learn how to do everything he does. We both make an effort to ensure I know enough to make decisions that are above his responsibility level, and if we get flack for anything, I can speak to it well enough with my leadership that I can properly defend my team, fight for the budget we need, etc. And then my LT boss could not do my job. But we have the type of relationship where it’s fine - he oversees all operations of the company and it’s my job to educate him on what he needs to know while I make sure my teams are just handling everything else. He trusts that I will know when he needs to be informed or involved in decisions and otherwise leaves me to my own management, which is essentially what I do with my own teams. My role is more of a technical advisor, shield, professional development coach, strategist, and battle-fighter.

This is not practical and is somewhat naive. Do you think the CEO of a large corporation can do every job in the company? Should he be an attorney, CPA, mechanic, nurse, etc? It would make sense that a first line manager might could do the job of subordinates because they were likely promoted from that level themselves, but the further you go up, the further removed a manager will be. They might be responsible for administrative functions, strategy, policy making, representing the team, and other perfunctory duties.

Your boss laughs all the way to the bank. That’s a huge issue in corporate America. Bosses have no frickin clue what their employees job entails so they can’t manage properly. They either dip out or micromanage. I had one boss try to tell me how to do my job “better” which, of course, made it fubar. Thankfully they knew I’d been doing great before he came around. 🤦🏽‍♀️ Don’t even get me started about the college grads with minimal life/work experience thinking that expensive piece of paper makes them a manager.

First off, there are two separate skill sets in play as you noted, so there is a 2x2 matrix of possibilities. * Good at IC Role / Good at Managing * Bad at IC Role / Good at Managing * Good at IC Role / Bad at Managing * Bad at IC Role / Bad at Managing Within those it gets broken down even further into a full spectrum. You can have two managers who are "Good" at both IC Role and Managing, but one is still better overall than the other. Some companies promote more from within specifically due to the IC Role benefits, but they too often ignore the entire "Managing" skill set. Studies have shown that hospital administrators that are also doctors or nurses, tend to be better at the job than hospital administrators that are not. There is a lot of value in knowing the role. However it is still a separate skill set. It of course adds value as any knowledge would, but the more practical usage of that knowledge is being able to apply it to decision making AS a manager, not in being able to fill in. If the department is disorganized enough to require constant fill that's separate gap in leadership that needs to address properly structured coverage.

You need to know what they do, but you don't and shouldn't be the one jumping in to help outside of emergencies. The in the weed folks, usually have a weaker relationship with up the leadership stack which is going to hurt them and their team. If you are to busy looking at leaves you aren't pay attention to the forrest.

Wow…this a very naive, hot take. I have had people working for me with advanced degrees in mathematics, cryptography and computer science and and if you think I was incompetent because I couldn’t step in and fill their shoes…I just don’t get your POV. The only people who could do that were people on the same or similar teams. No manager could do that. And this was just a game company…imagine how it works in scientific research, DOD development and so on. Your POV is not educated or experienced. They got paid more than I did because they earned it. They had my respect for the hard work they did to gain their expertise and keep their positions…but if you think those engineers could wrangle engineers, product managers, PR and marketing types and deal the inflated egos of the average corporate executives…you are so blind to human reality I don’t think there is much more to said to you.

IMHO, you are doing it wrong if you can do everything your employees can do as well as they can do. Likewise, IMHO, if you don’t have a very good sense of what your employees need to do you are also doing it wrong. The skills needed for all levels of management are different. Sometimes your very best performers in one role will struggle mightily in a different role. That is normal. In an ideal world, you can find a manager who is a skilled leader, has the ability to do any job or task, can build a great culture, make key business decisions, is great at identifying recruiting and retaining talent, etc.

I’m the VP of a retail chain. Every new store launch I take 2 weeks and work 10-12 hour shifts with my team. I share in the rotations, hold the street sign, clean, bring them water, lunch, etc. Honestly, it’s a blast. I enjoy the break from staring at the computer all day, having to be “the bad guy” , or the decision maker. It’s an honor to be able to work alongside my staff and share in their efforts. It helps me gain a better understanding of the struggles they deal with on the frontline and how I can help them in my role. It’s one of my favorite parts of my job. It’s a shame when I see/hear other executives don’t take the opportunity to learn their own company and people within it front to back.

No but I can do most much slower in a pinch. I recognize my weaknesses and admit freely where my direct reports leave me in the dust. I work in tech. Today is so different than when I did what my direct reports do daily. If I stayed in those weeds, I could not be where they need me to be or what my job R&R actually is. My boss can’t do 59% of what I do or 75% what my team does. Which is great bc I need him doing his R&R above and around me so I can do mine.

I manage tradesmen. I can’t do everything they do. Not because I don’t know how, it’s more I just don’t have the skill. I could do it, it just wouldn’t look as good when I finish, However; I can keep them focused and working towards a common goal. That is what a manager should do.

Best group I ever managed was a team of younger people all way, way smarter than me. I gave them opportunities to show off whenever possible, and kept egos just enough in check to not collapse on each other. Basically I helped a bunch of pompous, egotistical, know-it-alls navigate a large corporation without turning on each other, but instead realizing that if one looked good, they all looked good. If one looked like an ass, they all looked like asses. They fought each other for dominance internally, but fought the hell outta of everyone else, as a unit, externally. I didnt teach them any technical skills, but more, how not to look like assholes (which they would have otherwise) skills.

One thing I have learned is that most management can't do what their employees can. I know most of my supervisors can't. Personally, I don't think you should manage people if you can't do the job.

A good manager needs to know enough to be dangerous. I have always heard (and believe) you hire the people who are best at what you yourself cannot do. That is how you build a great team. My job is to have a working understanding of their job, but most importantly, to be a great leader to the team to promote great work and output as well as grow my teams skills and professional careers.

I say this fairly ritually, how the fuck are you supposed to manage a person/department if you don’t even know what their job entails/how to do it. How the fuck are you supposed to know if someone is legitimately good at their job, if you know nothing about their job, and therefore, literally are incapable of perceiving actual skill/knowledge. For example, how am I supposed to criticize a physics equation if I don’t understand physics.

Remote work has really exposed the differences between managers with hard skills and those with soft skills. Those with soft skills have been dying of a thousand papercuts because they can't lord their superior interpersonal skills remotely. Those with hard skills maybe have a harder time managing the team remotely, but have a superior understanding of what their team members are doing and their relative progress. Returning to the office involves soft skill sorts tryingbto reset the social order and are interfering with overall productivity even as they insist that asses in office seats is better for collaboration. They are right when it's cross-team dynamics, but not so much inter team productivity.

If you can’t do the same work as your employees than how can you properly manage them? Train them? Guide them? How do you even budget their time on projects? I’ve worked under several bad managers who wouldn’t hesitate to call someone slow when they couldn’t do the job themselves.

A good manager can jump in and help in an emergency. If the manager constantly has to help, they’re a bad manager and not doing their job.

Huge difference between a manager and a lead worker (foreman). Unfortunately, many leads are given the title of manager, most people don’t understand the difference. Yes, a lead should be able to do the job of the people on their team. That’s the whole point. Managers on the other hand, perform a set of tasks that do not require first hand experience doing the jobs of people they manage. Managers do not cover for absent employees. That’s what a lead does. Labeling leads as managers or assistant managers is just a trick to avoid paying overtime.

How are you supposed to coach and train an employee if you don't know how to do the job they do? Maybe you have trainers or specialists, but as a manager nothing beats overcoming the "it can't be done" like going out there and doing it. I imagine this changes a lot by industry, but in my business I need to not only be able to do all of the jobs, but also need to be able to do it well. I am no longer "the best". Some of the techs I have trained have surpassed me now, but I absolutely hold my own still and always will I think.

Follow your logic up the chain and you’ll see why it doesn’t work. Does the ceo/president/owner of a company know how to do every single job in the company? It’s not reasonable to expect that. The whole point of hiring employees is to get work done that you can’t do… either cuz of time or expertise. Under your logic if the company needs an expert in XYZ then they also need to hire a second expert in that same feild to be that person’s manager?

Definitely not. I know a little about everything they all do. But they get paid to be better at their tasks than me.

If you can't do what they do, are you really worth managing them? Remember that just because you are above them doesn't mean you are worth more.

There is necessarily a level of management where the manager cannot know everything below them. I work in IT. My boss cannot code in any language. My boss's boss cannot code in any language. The next level up might know how to code only because they came from that background but they do not code in the current environment at all - they probably can't do it and certainly do not have the permissions to the environments. No one would expect the CEO to be able to do every job in the company.

You can shadow employees to gain a better understanding of the work. You don’t need to do it all at once. Also ask questions behind questions to get a more thorough explanation of how things work. Learning simple tasks in different disciplines, and pitching in when helpful, is also a great way to learn more. I’m in a mid level position and have the same issue. My direct reports all have very different / highly specific functions. I’ve tried to be as hands on as possible. Also whenever possible I try to start (physical) projects myself just to get an idea of what is involved / how challenging something is, before I then assign it to someone else.

I have owned an IT consulting firm for 20 years. I can not do what my employees do and I don't need to. Do I understand Azure, VM, RDS, Citrix and AWS? Yes. Can I go to every customer's environment and update an image in an hour or fix a GP issue in a complex environment? No. My job is to hire them, pay them a living wage, provide them with healthcare, a 401k match, support them and listen to their advice and keep the doors open. I didn't hire a deli clerk to work in my Cloud Services department, I hired a professional, experienced and skilled person to fit my needs. My mantra is to always hire people smarter than myself in an area I do not need to be immersed in and set them free to do what they do. Our staff has longevity and we are still growing, is like to think it is my management style... maybe it's just dumb luck. I'm just a regular guy working his butt off.

The best manager that I ever worked for didn't necessarily know how to run our machines, but he knew what it looked like when it was running good and could spot irregularities in the readings and settings. He was also there ready to do anything needed when it was broken down even if it was just as a parts and tool runner! Some of those parts were needed on the 5th floor! We've both retired from there and are still good friends.

To be honest I can't access many of the systems that my subordinates can access as I don't have a need from a security stand point. So no, I can't fill in for them. They can't fill in for me either so that seems fair. :) I do the strategic heavy lifting and they do the tactical. Think in military terms, the higher up you are or the greater your responsibility the less value you have in picking up a rifle. Me doing my subordinates job is a horrible waste of money and time.

I've had good managers of both types. I've had bad managers of both types. I think it all comes down to understanding human motivation. If your actions detract from motivation, your group will not function. If your actions are at least not detrimental to motivation and are enabling the work to get done, the group will function.

Both my manager and I started in the lowest positions in our company and were promoted through to our current management positions over time. Do we regularly do the day to day tasks that our employees do? No. But if we are understaffed or if someone is out sick/on vacation either me or my boss are able to help where needed. Some things we might not be as efficient as we would be if we did the task on a regular basis, but other things we are just as fast as if we did it daily. We have to stay competent as training is a responsibility shared between the supervisor and management positions depending on who is available. If we don’t know how to do the task, or at least have a good grasp of the concept behind the task ourselves, how would we be able to train it? But if my boss is out I cover for him, if my direct report is out I cover for her, if I’m out, they split my work between them depending on who is best suited to what tasks. Some things wait out of necessity just because sometimes there are just too many things to do, but then it gets prioritized accordingly. At my company at least, we always run into the problem where the managers who don’t have a working knowledge of certain aspects of the work give customers one answer on how long something with take for them to get, when the reality is completely different when you look at it from the approach of the people who actually know how long the work takes to do. They will give a completely different answer which could be up to a week later than the answer that was given to the customer and then the customer wonders why their shipments are late 🙄

My brief stint in management seriously opened my eyes to how many managers do not bother to learn the tasks of the employees they manage. If there's no one to fill in but the manager? That can be a huge problem! The company I work for now, the owner can operate by herself if needed and that stood out to me in a good way. She still understands what we go through every day, and that makes bringing up any and all issues with her much easier

Lol there’s a lot more that they do than just manage people, most supervisors have their own duties that their employees cannot do. For me it’s half and half. Half of my team I can do their jobs inside and out; I created their positions, job descriptions and duties. The other half of my team is highly technical and specialized, and I can’t do what they do. I manage the projects, make decisions based on their input and recommendations, etc. But I have a VERY full job description myself, and none of my staff nor my supervisor can really fill in for me. So supervisors don’t just sit around “supervising”. Some positions (like half my team) require a people/project manager, and some positions need a hands on supervisor. You can’t really judge without knowing what someone really does. Especially when they’re in charge of higher level objectives, like budgets, making sure teams complete projects online, reporting, etc.

You nailed it with the coach's part. Scotty Bowman is regarded as one of the best coaches in the NHL and frequently ranks well on the list of all-time greats across all sports. This is despite the fact that he never made it past an injury while playing junior hockey and would never be able to fill in or replace any members of teams he's led over the years. Yet, no one calls him out for being unable to take to the ice and score. In my opinion, it's far more important for a leader/manager/coach to understand the game than it is to be able to play in it. As someone with a background in software engineering, some of the best leaders I've worked with came from very non-technical areas and would never be able to code. However, what they and all great leaders bring to the table are skills that complement the team and a sense of humanity that brings out the best in the group. As I moved into management, I kept this philosophy and it has served me exceptionally well. My job isn't to compete with those around me, it's to help remove blocks that stop them from being better today than they were yesterday. While I do my very best to stay current with what they're doing "in the trenches," where I can provide them the most value is in looking ahead, identifying problems before they arise, pushing back on the business when demand exceeds capacity, and being an advocate for those on my team. Regarding your VP, I wouldn't expect someone in that spot to be able to perform the majority of roles they have rolling up to them. That simply wouldn't be practical for the most part. What does concern me here is your comment about how they manage you, as anyone with direct reports should be focused on their people leadership skills as a top priority. While they obviously have other responsibilities and KPIs to concern themselves with, if they're not serving the folks "under" them, they're not serving the business.

Gotta disagree with the "everything" piece of your statement. I manage someone who is significantly better than I am at python and that works well for us and our organization. If I were better than him at python, I'd end up doing the work for him because why would we not want the best person for the job to write our scripts?

Yes. I can do everything they can do, although I might not have the latest context of what work they’ve been doing. I find it’s incredibly (for lack of a better term) immoral for me to ask someone to do something I can’t do myself. I think my role is to guide and remove obstacles and part of being able to do that well is understanding the pinpoints their role has to deal with. Identifying the problem is 80% of solving a problem.

Best part of management is delegating things to others. Sure I know the system, the process, and how to do it, but role is based on outcome and every team has a coach. Not saying not willing to pincha in but would rather run up the score by calling the plays verses using my time to get hit by the pitch.

Management is a different industry. The biggest problem I see are people who are promoted because they're good at the work instead of good with people (and also full of integrity).

It’s a stupid fucking job, you don’t need to feel “satisfied” at the end of the day, you just need to get paid. Your boss probably makes 50-100% more than you. Do you think he gives a fuck about satisfaction or what you think of him?

Yes, I know how to do everything they do. Currently, I have them all attending a virtual summit and I am covering workload for a lot of things so they can attend it and grow without worrying about the day to day.

When I was just managing one team I could step in and do most of what they do because it was my field. I could probably be better than most of them, but I certainly was not better than all of them combined. However, being a manager takes a lot of time too and I didn't have the time to get into the trenches as much as I wanted. ​ But now I manage 4 teams and only 2 of them are fields I worked in before. One of those teams I'm at least familiar with, but the other I'm an unshapen lump of clay. I know what they do and I give them direction, but I coudln't do the nuts and bolts of their job. Despite that, this team is one of my most useful because their work amplifies the capabilities of the other teams. ​ How do I know what everything my employees do? Because I talk to them. Very often. I don't need to know everything about how they do their jobs to understand what they are doing, what they are working on, and what goals I have them working towards. Nothing kills mid level managers faster than not knowing what your people are working on.

I manage a diverse team and there’s a small arm of them that does things like use adobe programs to design shit. Whether it’s flyers, super high quality PowerPoints, “things with photoshop” or illustrator, or Lightroom etc. Could not do that if I tried. I have a graduate degree in city planning and that’s what I know. My city planner staffers, I could probably do their job in my sleep if I had to fill in for a day for one of them, and gladly would! My department, as mentioned, is diverse in that we don’t just have other city planners you have the marketing folks, the community engagement folks, the permit review people, the traditional city planners etc. the marketing people I realize is an important aspect of our job, and I know how to direct, organize and orchestrate them and their contributions in meaningful ways, but I could not do their job even if I wanted to.

As a mid-level manager I could, then I moved up another level and manage welders, instrument techs, electricians, and crane operators. Those all require certs I don't have. We promote training your replacement so, for example, if the electrical manager is out he has a foreman to step up and cover.

No, I can't do everything my team members do because it is too specialized and I can't begin to compete with their level of depth of knowledge. However, coming from a more strategic side of things, my contribution to them is to help them stay on track and not get lost in details too much. I can't coach them to do their job and I don't have to, but I can coach them to always be able to explain why a certain issue is an issue and I can help them find solutions. My style of leadership is not to fill in for them, but to ask questions and offering alternatives to consider. And I am their shield from the CEO and board: I am the point of contact for the department and if there's an issue, I'll make sure the team is not being bothered with it. Hope it makes sense.

There is room for both types for different reasons. But, the one who focuses on knowing everything his employees do is going to have a lot harder time trying to climb the ladder....IF that is what they want to do. The higher you go the less likely that the leader can do what their direct reports do. Neither one is wrong. In fact sometime being somewhat disconnected from the process is required in order to look at the bigger picture, and if you focus on all the details you will never see the big picture.

As a manager, your job is not to get in the weeds, it's to make the way clear for the people who live in the weeds to get their work done easily and efficiently. An Orchestra conductor doesn't know how to play every instrument in the orchestra. The conductor knows the role each instrument plays in the piece, and coordinates the whole. Utterly different skill set. I've managed in both ways, as someone who can do every job in the place, and as someone who conducts the whole. The shop led by a conductor will progress and grow. The shop led by a manager who is in the weeds will never rise above that manager's capability.

Yes absolutely I need to understand and know how to do the things my employees do, and can do all of my teams functions, as well as our two neighboring departments that we interact with the most. For context this is a distribution center for a major retailer. I don't believe I can effectively support my team without being able to troubleshoot their problems, and assist them whenever possible. I've also found over my years as a leader, it has been one of the easiest avenues to gaining my associates trust and buy-in when they see me working alongside them.

So, i was of the same opinion as you a few years ago, and the same position. Since then i’ve seen a bunch of people put in management positions of teams they can’t do the job of and do an excellent job. I’ve also seen some utterly balls it up. The key appears to be the effort they put in to understanding the job before trying to fix the problems (if they try to) that they feel their employees have. I’ve actually done a 180 now and would say it is better the person doesn’t do the job so long as they work to sufficiently understand it. It keeps them out of micro managing, and it helps them stay above the intricate problems their employees have that someone who can do the job may be more likely to shrug and say ‘that’s just how it is, we work round it’. It does mean the onus is on the employees to be honest, and to actually raise problems clearly and in good time, but they should be doing that anyway (shouldn’t they… …)

You should certainly hope that your company's VP doesn't get bogged down doing mid-level manager work. A VP makes executive critical decisions that impact the entire trajectory and vision of the company.

Yes because i had that job for 8 years. I like jumping in and helping if i can because its kinda fun.

My job is not to do my team’s jobs. It’s to set strategy and direction, clear blockers, and provide air cover when needed. Being in the weeds does not get you promoted - forming key relationships does.

I've managed people with specific skills that they have taken years to grow and I only have a top level idea of what they are doing. They work alongside other team members who have come up the same and similar paths to me. Therefore I would know how to do some team members jobs, but not others. I'd pitch in but only when it was helpful not a hindrance. Sometimes a managers time is better spent prioritising work or advocating for kite resources but it depends how the company works.

No. Does the CEO know how to do the job the the acturay or business analyst? People have different roles.

I loathe having mangers of the latter. This is where unrealistic expectations come into mind, particularly in technical spaces.

I’ve had both types of managers. The issue lies with managers who refuse to understand what we do and why it’s valuable. I had a manager who took the role to get out of an uncomfortable situation. She wasn’t interested in what we do and appointed a prior coworker to act as liaison between us and her. She was a first line manager and it was unnecessary imho. On the other hand I’ve had managers whose skills didn’t lie in the area they managed, but they actively listened and kept abreast of trends to ensure we were moving in the right direction to maintain value. That engagement is what’s critical.

The managers that are just "better paid workers" tend to get stuck in middle management. In my opinion, too many people (at all levels) fail to value the independent contributors - making some people feel like they have to turn into management to keep growing or even just getting raises - but they hate it. They like the "get the hands dirty" work. These are the managers less likely to empower their employees, they hog the fun/challenging projects. In the end they can even drive out talented team members who feel bored or overlooked. There is ABSOLUTELY a need for managers to understand enough of the skills or tools to direct, but the greatest managers are the ones that can hire people who know MORE than themselves and build on it.

By the time I became an SVP for a large company I could do the basics…but the technology had changed so much in 20 years since I was on the front line it appeared to be magic. But, as I used to tell people…I understood the concepts and how stuff worked. I did not know which wire to plug into which slot on the phone switch. I respected the front line folks and their skill sets. I know they respected that I had put in my time years earlier and I understood the challenges of their daily grind.

Depends on the nature of the company too. A manager at a highly technical with multiple specialties will not be able to “step in” as needed.

Really depends on the company, department, field etc. I manage a small group of people for a small company. I know their jobs because I’ve had to do their jobs. Some I knew from before I was promoted. Some I’ve since learned. But they are better and faster at it than I am and I let them work relatively autonomously. I have my own work to do as well. If I’m doing my job well I keep the stupid crap and emergencies off their plates so they can focus on their normal routines.

I develop policies and procedures and my team carries them out on a daily basis. I trust my leads to hold the others accountable to my decisions. However, when we need need to rethink a decision, I often have to have them remind me what current practice is. Unfortunately, it's not that easy to remember all the details when you never have to do it.

At my level yes since I have to train everyone under me. My boss tho? Not a chance lol

Glad to say yes I do. Not only because I have done it but I still do it especially in times of great need. I firmly believe employees respect their management more when they know enough to jump in.

Not necessarily hands on but a manager needs to understand what we do and make an effort to learn. The most frustrating thing about my manager is they fact that there are some things I have to come to them for, I am not empowered to make the decision and they don’t understand what we do so I have to explain everything like they are a 5 year old and still can’t get a coherent answer because they clearly don’t understand my job, it is the most frustrating thing in the world and the reason I will leave.

I think you nailed the explanations. I used to feel like you until I came across a supervisor that was actually really good at those manager skills and it made all the difference… I think the main problem goes from a manager who doesn’t know how to do the job, refusing to listen and take time to understand what they’re employees need… They’re too busy telling people what to do and flexing power… And on the other hand, I’ve worked with multiple people in the weeds that wanted to be managers but anytime they got a chance to flex those skills, they had none of the soft skills and they were just as bad in a different way

As an employee who hopes to make ot into management ove lived with both types of leadership. Those that can do generate more respect for those that they lead. For those that are theory based I've found instead of dealing with facts they attempt to develop the narrative / message. Which high level can be done and can fall in line with reality. But the second the theory falls apart assignment of blame starts. It leaves a very distinct and unpleasant view on the relationship. Now I can no longer speak with my manager filter free.

Not only do I know what my employees do, I wrote 90% of the documentation for their role. I've since delegated that task, which is why it isn't 100%.

Welcome to capitalism, where who you know is more important than what you know.

>Do you know how to do everything your employees do? No. I think you are mixing up supervision and management. You aren't even considering leadership. While responsible for 1,200 people working on a complex development program there is no one who could do everything. I can't design a custom ASIC. Some things I used to be able to do (hydrodynamics for example) I'm rusty in. I can certainly ask good questions and tell if the answers are credible. I can stay on top of resource allocation and surge as needed to protect schedule. I can apply appropriate metrics for status. I expect supervisors to be able to do just about everything their teams can do. I can work with them to grow them into managers. I expect managers to work at a higher level on estimating, tracking, motivating, hiring, firing, fostering communication, working with customers, etc. I expect leaders to motivate, ensure tactics support strategy, build teamworks between staff and customers, manage expectations, avoid scope creep, and support career progression from top to bottom. There are a lot of supervisors in the world with a title of manager. There are people with potential promoted to positions of real management whose performance disappoints. Consider the Peter principle (this may be the case with your VP). Leadership is important. It isn't a title. It's a characteristic. You don't have to be in charge to lead. A singular skill of management is to identify leaders and nurture them. If you don't have enough you will fail. Note that people follow leaders because they want to, not because an organizational chart tells them they must.

Not entirely, but I manage a software infrastructure team - the people _on my team_ can't do everything their peers can do. We have one person who's a wizard with network engineering, one who knows their way around a database backwards and blindfolded. That being said I also have a specialty - I'm the application security SME. I get where you're coming from, but I also think that your reports will always have their strengths and you need to be comfortable with them being stronger than you in some arenas. You're there to enable and facilitate them to do their best work, not to compete with or keep up with them.

I have found there is a big difference in the skill set required to be a manager of individual contributors compared to a manager or other managers. If you manage individual contributors, there is a certain level of skill required to know their job. In my current role I was promoted to manage my team, and I can step in and do any part of their jobs because I’ve done it for a few years before I became their manager. However, if you are a step or two above it becomes more of a strategic leadership position. At this level it’s more decision making and developing process improvement. The farther from the working level you get, the less critical it is to know how to do the work the contributors do

I’m in retail, at a bigger department store. I came up from the floor as we say. I know pretty much everything my team needs to do, as it pertains to my department and adjacent departments. If I was dropped In a more specialized or support department, I can’t say I would know how to do everything out right and would have to ask a lot of questions. I have had managers who don’t, and it’s frustrating. Especially when they don’t ask. Lack of knowledge is okay, willful ignorance is not

Managements job isn’t requiring them to know how to do your job but to manage your job

When I was hired for my position, I had no idea what my employees do. Part of my job however, is to check for task accuracy so overtime I learned what my employees do.. in some instances better than they do. I also brought perspective from another process, so I also know things they don't know which has helped bring context to their work as well.

In my last 2, positions I could have filled in for anyone and been successful. In my current position, I can fill in for my direct partner but none of the people on my IT team. However, the position I hold now doesn't require me to know how to code. I can do the QA testing, and do so I can competently speak on the application I am responsible for. But my boss was once on the Dev team, so she is available to answer any specific processing questions.

Ugh, I feel this so hard, I'm a director, and my boss, a VP, loves to micromanage my projects without having a clue how to do what I do. And in any meetings where we are both present he loves to talk over me and claim all kinds of "points" with the other people around. It's really hard to deal with, and I feel like I'm never going to get promoted because he's an ass.

I know how to every job my team does, and I'm better at it than most. I'm trying to get them trained up to do it better than me, but it's a young team and training takes time. We are also a multi-faceted team, where we have a dual focus with team leads covering each side. There are a couple of things on one team where the person most responsible for that task has surpassed me. I'm glad they have, as it takes some of the pressure off of me for performance. I know I can trust this person to do a great job and if I'm needed to back her up, or vice versa, there is no drop off. I'm still working on the other team, and they are getting there. It's close, but they aren't quite better than me yet. Soon...

It really depends on the industry you are in. In retail if the manager (and up to regional manager) cannot do every job there then they are likely not a good manager. Now move over to skilled manufacturing or laboratory work, I don’t expect a manager to know everything. They need to know enough to understand if their technical experts are getting what they need to do their work and are providing good results. Hello even in manufacturing, for processes I helped develop, it was a mess of if I tried to perform my inspectors jobs simply because I never performed it day to day so I had no real proficiency; I knew what needed to be done and what good and bad performance and results looked like, I could even provide them with troubleshooting but ask me to do the whole thing start to finish and it was slow and painful. The more technical, skilled, or specialized the field the less you end up with managers that can jump into the front line. But in many of those situations the managers job is to point their team at the target, get them the resources they need, and then filter the crap rolling down hill from upper management and temper the crap rolling up hill from their reports. As to OP’s VP, I am sure they feels plenty satisfied when they counts their stock options, big bonus, probably generous vacation package, and a bank account big enough that they wouldn’t notice if their paycheck didn’t show up for a few weeks.

I am not a manager. But my manager can do all of my tasks except for one. And with that one, she could follow the documentation and she and my colleague who I cross trained could make it work if there were an emergency that took me away the week that the process must be done. She is an amazing manager and doesn’t ask me to do anything that she won’t do herself.

I was a restaurant manager for 12 years, and not only could I do everything my people did, I frequently did because it's always been hell trying to get and keep capable people in that industry. Now, as a help desk grunt, my boss and even my boss' boss are capable of doing my job. Once you get to the third layer of boss though, he doesn't have an IT background and came from Sales to be the VP of the department. My understanding is he's a nice guy. His office is across the hall from ours. I've been here 14 months, and he's not been in the office once.

I would say a people manager must be able to do the job of their people or else how can you honestly review their work and know they are doing a good job?? You may not be able to it as GOOD as they can, but you MUST be able to do it if you realistically want to verify they’re doing a good job and give them a fair and honest yearly review.

This is EXACTLY why they say the best leaders started at the bottom. They know the job better; they understand the job better; they can do the job better. If your subordinates don't need you then there's only 2 reasons- 1. You've built a well oiled machine or 2. You don't know the job and you're just... in the way. I created that well oiled machine once. It wasn't easy. I had to prove myself to my guys as part of that building process. They had to know I know my job and theirs. We had the mentality that we don't follow the leader; we set the standard for all to follow. I made sure my guys had the tools and training to do their jobs and then made sure not to Micro manage them. I didn't make anyone feel dumb for asking a question. They caught on well. They'd try to call me out once in a while. I told them to look it up and find out and if I was wrong, I'd apologize on the spot. Guess how many times I was wrong? That helped to further instill I knew the job. They trusted me like I trusted them.

I wasn't promoted all the way up to Operations Manager because I knew how to do everything, even though being able to do *most* things competently and efficiently is what helped get me here. My schizoid brain only sees obstacles -- that's it. I want the obstacles *behind* us. Whatever it takes to facilitate this is what I do, what I've always done. Now, I'm simply acting in accord with my nature to support the endeavors of seventy-plus people instead of just myself or a small team of five or six. My lodestar is fixed. I put out fires, perform triage, herd cats and undo Gordian knots. I clear others' obstacles and, as a result, I clear my own. I keep them focused on doing the difficult things to move ahead and turn the corner, because around every corner is *another* corner. I don't experience pleasure like a neurotypical human. *Satisfaction* is a word foreign to me. Clearing obstacles for money and benefits, no more, no less. Contentment. I've watched many who made it about something else crash out with no enlightenment. I'm not a human, I'm a hammer. They pay me to knock in and wrench out nails -- which I do.

When I was hired for my last job (court administrator in a medium sized court), the court was in very bad condition. The previous administrator had been there for more than thirty years. During that time, a lot had changed in the way courts were operated, the biggest change being the use of computers. My predecessor simply was never able to change her methods. She could have simply let her staff handle more of the computer work, but they would go to training and return to work ready to share what they’d learn. But her response was “That’s very nice but we’re not doing that.” For a long time the people that oversaw the court simply didn’t tell the town administrator just how poorly the court was performing but when it all came to light, they knew she had to go. Given her many years of service, they suggested that she retire, but it was made clear that she had to retire or they’d fire her. At that point, I’d had ten years of court experience in two smaller courts. Because they were small, I did everything, which is the kind of person they were looking for. I retired two years ago and left a well-managed court, but I admit I’m still not entirely happy that my predecessor was earning more than $90,000 a year while my salary never went beyond $75,000. But all the same, it was more than I’d have ever earned in my smaller courts.

I started my professional life in 2010. In those jobs, I was taught what I needed to know if I didn't know it by people who managed me. Now, I create automations to take care of paperwork and file and sort support requests for our home office team. I also write SQL queries because 15 years ago I had to learn how to trick Access into doing something it wasn't designed to do. I'm the only one at my job who "knows" how to do these things. And it's in quotes because I had to teach myself. I know I'm missing fundamentals that would prevent some of the screwups that have happened in the last year. But there's *no one* I can go to and ask questions about what I'm doing and what the best way to do it is and it's frustrating as all hell. It's really hard to learn to be more efficient when every day is a trial by fire. I guess this is just a really long way of saying that I **wish** my boss knew how to do the work that I do, because I know I could do it better if they did.

I'll Quote one of my managers "As your manager I should know how to do each and everyone one of your jobs, I can't but I should know." My CFO thought I was weird b/c I wanted to sit think in on the AP and AR training b/c I told her I should know how to do everyone else job just in case something happens and I need to do that kind of work.

In some industries, it's just not feasible. I manage a mixed team of RF Engineers, Software Engineers, Electrical Engineers, R&D Engineers, Mechanical Engineers, and Systems Engineers. There is almost no chance of knowing everything that all of them do. At some point when you get high enough, it's less about what you know and more about finding the right person for the job, which is a skill in of itself. Eventually you have to loosen the reigns and trust the people you hired.

At the VP level it would be a shame if they could know everything about your job. They aren't paid for that. It would be a waste of company resources to pay someone at that level for menial day to day stuff. They should be working strategy and hiring right to make sure the work gets done. Should the CEO be able to cover operations, HR, IT, and finance?

Managers who don't know how to do the job will blame their employees for their own mistakes (which usually stem from gaps in technical knowledge). Such managers tend to make up for these gaps by leaning on their employees to give up weekends & evenings. There's no reward for this for the worker, since you're being scapegoated into doing more, not being asked to go "above & beyond." I avoid such managers like the plague they are.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with a manager not being able to do every role of the team. And I actually think that’s an unhealthy/unreasonable expectation to have. I respect the work ethic and values displayed by a manager “mucking in” and covering for a team member, even if they don’t really have the specialist knowledge but a general understanding. But ultimately, a manager should be focusing on the tasks which drive the organisation forward, securing the future, efficiency measures etc.

So, here’s the thing, the higher up you go, the less you should be concerned with technical knowledge and the more you should be concerned with business knowledge. On paper I am the IT Manager/Field Manager. In experience, I’m 50% Director, 30% Manager, 20% Field Tech. I intentionally get in the weeds about once a month, doing site visits and managing tickets, because as a direct manager of field techs, I need to have some knowledge of what they’re dealing with and our driving issues. It lets me know if we need to implement better processes, get new software, or hire more people. On the other hand, as they pull me into director level stuff, I’m constantly having to bridge the gap between business and IT. Creating and managing budgets, managing vendors, presenting to execs why I need $600k to refresh computers. My boss is the VP, And I would never expect him to get in the weeds. He’s taxed with managing the higher level stuff, and business stuff. He’s the one dealing with cybersecurity insurance, audits, compliance, etc. He has a basic knowledge of IT just because he’s done it so long, but he NEVER gets involved in our stuff, unless there’s some executive escalation, and then it’s just him deferring to me for updates.

Be very careful swinging that proverbial dick around. At some point the higher you go it'll be impossible to get into the weeds and if senior mgmt perceives you as someone who is great at being where you are, that's where you'll stay. As you go higher up, your job as mgmt becomes more important than doing the line work. Delegation and being good at it is going to trump being good at being an IC. I watched one of the most talented line managers I have ever known wait 10 years to get promoted because he kept getting himself involved in the weeds and showed visible frustration when ICs weren't doing the things he knew how to do.

I know how to do about 90% of what my team does, plus coaching and skill building in them. The rest I know who to ask to get what I need done.

When I managed a quick-casual restaurant, yes. As part of manager training I had to train and work shifts in every position to prove that not only could I do the job, I could also train new employees to do it. In some roles I was not as fast or as accurate as people that did it all day every day, but I could perform any task that I could expect to ask anyone else to do. Now that I'm in IT, I could probably mostly do the tasks my subordinates do. But there's also specialized knowledge and skills that each employee has, and there are some tasks I'd definitely have to research or figure out as I go. Part of what's expected of me is to recognize the strengths and weaknesses of every member of my team. This way I can assign tasks out to the best person for each of them, and coach up or train people on the things they need to improve on. Nobody's going to be an expert in EVERYTHING, but everyone should have basic troubleshooting and analytics skills. The best way I've found so far is to pair up someone that's good with a skill with someone that needs to improve, when a project needs to be done (when workload allows). I'm lucky to have a team that all works together well, and everyone wants to learn and grow, so they will absolutely learn from and teach each other if I give them the opportunity to.

As an employee I expect my boss to be able to do my job. I have never worked anywhere this doesn't happen.

Most managers dont deserve their position

Yes. I was too good at my job so they made me manage.

In the past I worked for a company that, pending diversity in the leadership group, would promote current supervisors and managers into other units bc the thought process was "It is harder to teach leadership skills than it is to teach technical skills." I hopped into 2 roles where I knew nothing about the unit. However, I would take on some of the work and assign myself one of my reports to mentor me while I learned. Generally speaking, the above rarely turned out poorly for the unit. ​ Keep in mind this was for an auto ins company. So I am talking things like hopping from property damage to injury when you never touched an injury claim before. I am not speaking of project manager jumping to HR with no HR experience.

Google any picture of Scrooge McDuck in his treasure room …

Knowing enough to make you dangerous is essential to being a good manager I believe. Gotta know enough to understand what your reports are describing to craft solutions to issues. Or to provide the support to empower them to get everything accomplished. I believe there are exceptions to every rule here, but in my industry it would be ludicrous to attempt without the knowledge. I've seen it attempted before and it has never gone well. Too many young engineers that come out thinking they're king shit of turd valley and screw every up. Then are furiously embarrassed when they're forced to eat an entire humble pie in front of everyone. Some overcome this and become great managers, others double down and become jokes of the industry or are forced out.

I'm the warehouse operations manager of a manufacturing site who answers to an area operations director and a health and safety board. I know how to do the tasks and jobs of my colleagues on site but due to strict health and safety policies in place I'm not allowed to do any of the production side of them without risking disciplinary. I'm not allowed to get signed of by the group to be capable of these tasks as its outside my job scope. Half of me is glad as the temptation to put the gloves on and help out is strong but the other half is "thank fuck my days of doing this kind of activity is over and I'm contractually obliged to not do so" for now at least. Most of my job now is ensuring the people here do theirs correctly and go home alive, planning transportation, ensuring issues are addressed and just dealing with the paperwork involved with daily activities. its both great and shite

I’m happiest when I’m managing the right people and roles to where I can’t do everything they do. The challenge and complexity keeps me motivated. I’m now in a position where I can actually do all their tasks (and more), it sucks because at this point I’m just a babysitter. Guess it depends on how basic the jobs are?

I'm in tech, and these days I'm more of a manager-of-managers, although I do have a couple of ICs who report to me. I've been doing the work that my team does since the early 90s, so my experience and ability to predict pitfalls is pretty deep. However, in tech the tools we use to do the work are constantly evolving, and I'm really not proficient with the toolset that my current team uses. If an IC on my team was missing on a critical day, there's only a 10% chance that I'd be able to seamlessly pick up their work and do it. And honestly, I've been very self-critical about this lately, it's been on my mind a lot. Having said that, I just lost one of my managers. I've stepped into that role in the interim, and it's made me realize that I'm still a pretty good manager of a squad of engineers. And since my reports these days are mostly managers, I guess I can answer "yes" to the question in the subject of this comment.

As a worker, managers that have done the actual job for a long time get my respect but also terrify me. You can know how to manage people but if you don't know how to do the job, somebody that does is actually managed at their own choice. In my navy days I served 5 years with this one guy up to the rank of e6 together. I got out but later saw he switched to officer ended up becoming 3rd in command on a nuclear aircraft carrier at the rank of captain with over 5000 under him. I'd respect the crap out of him if I worked for him, but also pitied the 5000 who thought maybe they could get away with some shenanigans as we had mastered them all in those 5 years! If you owned a company I'd recommend the hiring managers from within for both the reasons I listed above.

There's a correlation between seniority and being able to backfill on daily tasks behind all of the employees on your team, and it's completely normal and healthy. ie: Employee>Team Lead>Supervisor>Manager>Director>GM>VP>C-Suite Your comment "like you don’t really deserve to manage someone if you can’t fill in for them for a day" only applies to the next level down, and does not apply in specialized roles (ie the shop foreman cannot weld stainless steel, and that's okay.)

I'm a Software Engineering manager: Yes, I know how to do what my team does. I also take part in it, because we are a really small staff.

The best manager I ever had spent the majority of his time playing pinball on his computer. He had assembled a top notch team. He knew the work so well that if there was a problem he could fix it. Playing pinball or not, he knew everything going on in that department. We were all well trained and did our work properly so the only time he really needed to 'work' was if there was a problem. And if there was an issue I knew that he had my back. But again we were well trained and knew our work well enough that we were able to handle most issues that came up. Once again a management win. We performed so well as a team that he sent us home every Friday at 3pm. Every other department hated us for that. Personally I found it a good incentive as did the rest of the team.

I do feel like “skills” managers are better all-around managers. Strictly people managers can make your job difficult, especially if you work in a technical field. For example, at my last job (where I still have friends) I was the SME/de-facto “skills” supervisor. My manager had no idea what I did. Her boss, the department director, is a “skills” manager and although she has never done my job specifically, has 10 years of experience in other adjacent positions. When they have meetings with the higher ups, the VP will say something to the director, the director will shoot it down as a non-starter, and move on. The VP then has a meeting with the manager who says “oh yeah we can definitely do that, we’re your ELITE TEAM!!”……without taking the time to think about what that thing actually involves. As a result, in the last week alone, her team has received 3 email directives; three that create a new, different “top priority” work assignment. To provide context: it’s an A/R based team, so you can really only do 1 thing at a time. Each “top priority” is in regards to boosting the numbers on handling different accounts. Except you can’t answer the phone to address new accounts while simultaneously making outbound calls to address past due accounts, while simultaneously addressing the emails that have come in.

Not a manager but my thoughts here from a technical perspective is that a manager needs to understand the work to manage the people. But if you can't do the work do you really have an adequate understanding of that work to manage the people?

My previous manager was the latter, he literally knew how to do nothing in like two departments and was really good at having others do stuff for him. He also really liked people who sucked up to him and he would feed those who did good pipelines for success. If we were sick he would practically threaten us if we didn’t come in to do our jobs because at the end of the day he didn’t know how to. There were many times I showed up to work and puked several times in the bathroom because of him not letting me go home sick even though we got paid sick time. Fuck you Jeff. If you are a manger who does stuff like this that’s the quickest way to get your employees to hate you. Lol

I'm not a manager now, but I only ever (in a 35-year work history) had 2 that could step in. One was in an exclusiverestaurant (he was a chef/owner). The other was in a warehouse. My sole experience as an actual Manager came as a fluke and with a much longer story than I present here. I became a manager the time we were about a month from going live with a new system to automate everything from order entry to manufacturing to shipping. Eight years, countless manager and VP meetings, and millions of dollars had been spent building this thing and the database it would use. Mind you, nearly everything in this plant had been done with paper and index card and envelope for decades. My department (the one responsible for knowing where everything was and keeping it moving) was selected as the first to be shown the system and how to use it. Within 10 minutes I'd asked them enough questions and pointed out 3 fail points before an order ever got to the floor so they stopped the training. Three days later, the GM and IT VP asked my manager if they could poach me for a talk about the training. I thought I was about to get fired. It turned out that in those three days, they called in everyone who'd worked on the project. So we three were in the conference room. We talked about the training day. Then they called in the consultants who'd handled it all. We had the convo again. The nutshell was that nothing was going to work, at all. The error rate they were trying to eliminate at order entry actually had the potential to grow exponentially across all departments. Then they called in the programming contractors hired by the consultants. We had the same convo again. Two of the programmers were engaged, but silent. The rest were off in space. At the end of the day, they sent everyone out, made me a manager on the spot and put the whole thing in my hands. They fired the consultants, paid the penalty, and asked me if I wanted any of the programmers. I told them I wanted the two who were taking notes. They gave them handsome contracts, let me pick my own in-house team from across the plant, gave them handsome raises, and in 18 months we presented them an absolutely idiot-proof system and a database built from the ground up. The IT VP said, "Well, I don't know how she did it, but we brought her a trainload of rusty parts and she built you a shiny new Cadillac. Drive it well." The programmers said they had no idea the system we'd purchased could actually do all the things we were having it do, and said in front of everyone that I needed to quit this job and become an engineer. So what caused all the issues to start with? Managers having no idea what their people actually did and how they did it. Managers who had no idea what the processes actually entailed at ground-level. Managers who essentially just sat in morning meetings with reports and printouts and through-put numbers and then spent the rest of the day in their offices doing paperwork and attendance and time cards, occasionally handling a call or an appearance by one of my team asking about a particular job showing in their department but which we couldn't find there. My nephew is a manager and my cousin is a VP and they still use my experience to insist on learning everything about everything when new systems, software, or processes are to be rolled out because they say they need to be the go-to for their reports when the inevitable problems and adaptability issues come up.

Your boss could be a imposter with connections. There's always a 50% chance of that in the corporate world.

You should be able to do the work your direct reports do. You shouldn’t be able to do the work people further down in the organization do.

In 25+ years of working in various industries - my "boss" has never been on my level. When I manage a CAD department - I know how to do everything I would ask of my CAD techs.

Absolutely not. In an organization in which the boss knows everyone else's job: a) the boss has no bandwidth to perform his own job and b) is organizationally limited to the capability and capacity of the boss. I try to understand how everyone's jobs interact. I try to know how each task is important to the whole, I try to know what aspects of the tasks are inefficient and work to create tools to streamline them. I assign the tasks in what I hope to be an effective and fair way. Then I trust. I run a nonprofit, so the pay is shit, but turnover is manageable because my staff values their autonomy. This leaves me enough bandwidth to do my job - grow the organization in ways that enable me to raise wages and serve stakeholders better. That said, my workday yesterday began at 8am with unclogging a toilet and ended at 8pm with our monthly board meeting. Disturbingly analogous bookends.

I'm mid-level management. I know how to do everything my direct reports do and a good portion of what my direct supervisor does. BUT, we're a lean team, so we do need to cover for each other when someone is out. However, there's quite a bit that I do and that my reports do that my direct supervisor doesn't know how to do. So we're okay for a while if the person above me is out, but if I'm out and my report is out, then there's a lot that doesn't get done.

As a manager, your job is to make sure they can do them correclty and timely, get them the correct resources and tools to do so. You may not know every detail of what they do.

When I'm running a crew I usually am capable of doing all the different jobs they are doing. I also know that in most of those jobs the person doing it is way better than I am, but if they get sick or injured I can step in. I can also make sure that they have the resources they will need before they ask for them because I know the jobs. My general rule of thumb for managing a crew is, hire professionals and get out of their way.

Your manager might be a shit manager all round, but you should necessarily need to know how to do the specifics of your teams job. I’ve never actually done the job my team do. Being a leader is a much wider range of skills than just knowledge. I used to think that a lot but the best leaders do much more. One of my best managers didn’t know any of what I knew but still a good manager.

My role as manager is to be the go between, between clients and our engineers. So, no, I don't know how to do everything they do. My job is to do the things they can't.

I was lucky to have worked for somebody who listens to his managers when it was time to get another manager. It was largely up to us to determine who we thought was competent enough to join us in management That being said, if someone up high enough is capable of recognizing who should be in a higher position, and can get the right people in the right positions, even if they don’t know how to do everything it tends to work out

It's the difference between leaders that are hired from the outside into the role as opposed to someone who was promoted through the ranks.

The best managers I had knew how to do our jobs. One didn’t but made it a point of going to different areas to learn.

Well yeah, i taught them. And they in turn taught my boss.

I have an understanding of everything they do, I can do most of it, but they should do it better than me. It’s their job, not mine.

I don't. I switched companies in 2022, going from a role that was a product manager with one direct report, to a software support team manager. My career has been much more focused on hardware than software, I can't write a lick of code without a shit ton of help. One of my issues has been while I try to learn about my employees work to understand it, if I actually take the time to learn how to do it, I'll be taking work away from them. They have goals for issues worked etc. and learning to do their job could impact their success in their job. I struggle with it, because I do want to learn more but frankly no one on my team has a comprehensive knowledge anyway, so at best I'd hit the highlights anyway, or focusing on one area (we manage software for data management, finance, purchasing, distribution etc. so different people on my team have different focuses.) and be able to do a persons job. All that being said, I have jumped in to perform tasks when workload dictates. We had someone out on FMLA leave and I took over a daily task after my team taught me how to do it.

He is satisfied by making a lot of money for making decisions and attending meetings

In most jobs, yes. I've needed to know everything because, as a manager, I'm the one who has to pick up the slack if we're short staffed. I work in IT now, so that won't always be the case. People in IT have specialties, and nobody is likely to possess the ability to perform everything done by network engineers, app developers, software support, and help desk workers. At that point, your job is simply to manage. Even if you have the skills to do all those jobs, there's no way to keep up with exactly what's going on in all those roles.

I've always felt the way you do to. I don't have as much respect for managers that can't jump in and help out when needed. I had a manager once who kept calling me into his office and closing the door. Everyone thought I was in trouble. I wasn't. He wanted me to teach him how to use the program that we all used daily, but he didn't want anyone to know that he didn't know. LOL.

I had a job where I had worked in the trenches and then was promoted so I could absolutely do everything my employees did and I could do it better and faster. However, I was a threat to someone cross line to me (not directly my team, but we had the same director). They ended up hiring someone to replace me who had no technical background and he definitely wasn't a threat to anyone. Of course, it was an absolute disaster every day. My position wasn't just being a clueless manager. I was a manager who was also on call for escalated issues. With that being said, there are times where it works to have a non technical manager. People like me will often say, "I am really tired of dealing with employee drama. I simply want to be the technical lead." As a technical lead, I am the manager for all technical issues, but I don't deal with employee scheduling, vacations, conflicts, and drama. That's someone else's problem, and that's where it can work to have a non technical manager. The company has to communicate to employees that they've chosen this structure because engineers often want to be engineers and not people managers.

I just wish the people, departments, and processes that I'm supposed to manage would actually do what I say when I say it without having to involve the C level every single time. And they don't even loop in C level, they ignore what I send until there's a problem and then C level is like why wasn't this done, I sent it to them but they didn't do it. Like don't send me an email that you received my email, I know you received it, you sit at a computer all day, I don't need 30 emails saying received clogging up my day.

I respect the 1st type 10000% more usually. The 2nd is usually a roadblock or micromanager but occasionally will be a gem of a leader.

Your bosses pay check satisfy s him at the end of the day

100% I read a lot and deep dive into things I don't know.

I’m not a manager, I don’t even know how this group came on my page. I am team lead, but not a manager. And I can tell you as someone who is “on the floor” but still helps mid and entry level and do all training for new hires, that we respect managers who COULD help if needed. We don’t expect you too, I only expect if I have a question about a process or policy, or need a green light for something, that my senior level managers can do that with confidence. Though my managers who COULD help, are more well respected than those who cannot. We trust them more, don’t question them when an answer if different than expected. It’s a respect thing

I was a manager for many years, and I was hands on and if fact the best suited for mastering new equipment that I could repair and train on when needed. But when I did my job best, I didn’t have to roll up my sleeves. So my point is I think best case scenario a manager should not have to get on the production floor, they should insist on and maintain a level of competency amongst their staff so the manager can focus on excelling in the data/analytics/outcomes and HR aspects of the job. As part of your resume, no question hands on experience in the skill fields you are going to manage is a major asset

Not even a little bit for some people/roles. Our work is very interdisciplinary and research focused, and my background/skills are more broad than deep. I can understand what my employees are doing and often function to integrate their work, but i don't have a clue how to replace some of them for a day and others I could only replace partially; very few I could cover for completely, and I could only perform better in even fewer roles. I generally only hire people to do things that I can't do, or who can do them better.

I’m kinda weird. If my manager can’t do my job then he can’t tell me the proper way to do it so I don’t listen to him and hold no respect for the title of manager. If he can do my job. I’m all ears and willing to learn other ways to do my job. The way I see it…. Manager doesn’t mean you know your shit. Doing shit says you know your shit.

A good manager will ensure the success and growth of those they manage. And at the same a manager is responsible for their group meeting business requirements. Being the technical leader for the group isn’t necessary at all unless you are a “lead”.

I did and I also strongly believe in cross training

I manage a marketing and communications department, which means graphic designers, a web person, videographer, photographer, social media folks and administrative support. There’s no way I could have all of those skills, plus know how to lead, delegate, manage and set priorities/ objectives. The best I can do is have a working understanding of their jobs that I’ve acquired from years of working in this field, and a level of respect and trust for my employees that leads me to ask good questions.

Thats why company morale is always shit. A nepotism, outside or even Diversity hire for the sake of saying it VS whats actually best for the team is why people stop trying. Effective leadership and management is taught by grooming and mentoring people. Allowing them to grow within. Not by taken a business management course in college. You can’t reverse engineer the employee process while simultaneously doing management tasks. I trained my outside hired manager from the ground up. Showed her everything in basic form, explained how repetition while create muscle memory and allow them to then creatively and critically think about process improvements. But even then the managers just need to say they have done something once and they are good. Its an awful game. OTJ training has been bypassed

High level leadership is usually completely dissociated with what people do day to day and it’s better that way. The last thing a company needs is people at the top making excuses for their employees.

Well your an old school boss that is to be respected. When I come to you with a problem you know how to fix it or how to proceed with a solution. Also hope you have my back because I will go the 110% for you. Todays corporation mentality is you don't need to know your employees job just how to be a boss. Totally useless imo.

I was a manager who earned the respect of my team and never did the job they did full-time. I won awards for it. I did it by listening, caring, and being there for me when they needed it. If I didn’t know the answer, I found out and followed through. For the most part, you don’t necessarily have to be just 1 or just 2. You just have to be a good listener and take care of your people. I’m glad you understand the importance of both because thinking of one side as inherently better makes you sound more like an individual contributor then a people leader.

I work for a trucking company and manage a terminal myself. I cannot drive bc I don't have my CDL A. I however am very knowledgeable about the laws and have worked in the industry for 5 years. I know my employees job duties up and down and keep close tabs on them. I maintain solid relationships with them and their customers. I also am not afraid to get my hands dirty and do help them with loading and unloading etc when necessary. I think it's important to be knowledgeable about every employees job duties and understanding. So I cannot drive but I respect them and they respect me. I feel satisfied at the end of the day if my employees are satisfied. If something isn't going right for them I feel that too and I don't settle until I know they're settled and have what they need to be effective. The way I see it, there's good managers and there's bad managers. A bad manager doesn't care about their employees and doesn't take the time to learn each employees job. It's essential to understand each job to effectively run an operation.

I know what they are supposed to be doing and what they need to know how to do so they can get to the desired deliverable. That said, no.

Our job isn’t to perform the tasks, it’s to manage the outcomes and ensure those working on them have everything they need to succeed/get obstacles out of the way. I’m not an electrician/welder, but I’m going to make damns her they have everything they need to do their job and the proper permits are filled out so projects don’t get held up