Interesting to hear managing up as an overall negative trait. I can’t help but applaud almost any internal promotion at companies since so many from upper management, directors, etc. are hired outside and so rarely promoted up from within.
I’m not sure it’s true that being a bad middle manager makes you a bad director or exec.
I definitely agree that the most effective upper management (directors and execs) would mostly make terrible middle managers.
Idk how you “prove” you’re anything beyond middle management anyway as an external hire outside of network tbh which is maybe why some of those positions go for over $1M/year which equally boggles the mind - to cite an example, why is an HR director at Netflix making $1.2M/year
I don't necessarily mean that managing up is negative in all cases. Its negative when that is the person's main focus - to manage up for that next promotion, make their mgmt believe everything they do is great, nothing is their fault. Its a very selfish point of view and where internal toxic politics breeds because in my eyes that person is putting themselves ahead of all others, the org, deliverables, the people that report to them, etc.
I see upper mgmt the same as middle mgmt. What is your distinction between the two? Budget control? They are both in the middle of the organization and are sort of generic jobs in a way.
I once jokingly answered in an interview question about time complexity something that is seemingly incorrect but is actually correct.
Everyone knows object lookups (hash maps) are generally O(1) complexity and thus more performant than arrays for looking up values.
And that becomes a rule of thumb - codified as law.
But it’s not always true. For example if you know the index, the array lookup is significantly faster in virtually all languages.
But I answered in a way that sounded like it was exactly wrong. And it was treated as such.
To me, it sums up the problem with corporate intelligentsia. And it gave me yet another reason to be fake and lie all the time.
While I think the nuance should separate the strong from the weak, instead you just get snapped to a grid of mainstream talking points anyway, so you have to stick to that grid up front if you know what’s best! Choose the right paths and they are rigid
I’m not sure it’s true that being a bad middle manager makes you a bad director or exec.
I definitely agree that the most effective upper management (directors and execs) would mostly make terrible middle managers.
Idk how you “prove” you’re anything beyond middle management anyway as an external hire outside of network tbh which is maybe why some of those positions go for over $1M/year which equally boggles the mind - to cite an example, why is an HR director at Netflix making $1.2M/year