If you skip 2 or 3 levels and end up in a position in which you have to lead and manage people more experienced or smarter than yourself while also managing a ton of projects and priorities. How should one prepare?
I believe a lot of founders of somewhat successful companies had to do it. I am curious on how people successfully do this.
Delegation is usually the biggest problem for new manager. Second place is probably trusting people to do their work, they will do it in their own way. In our field there are so many ways to solve the problems we have as long as they are solving the problem along guidelines you set, then that is good. Be wary of wanting people to solve problems the way you would solve it.<p>Hire manager-of-one types of people that don't need hand holding to get their job done. Don't worry that your staff want your job, many of the senior software people do not want management at all.
Smarter people are great: you can full-heartedly delegate decisions and say "you are the expert, please decide, I trust you".<p>See yourself as part of the team with the unique position of gathering information from experts, coordinating and depending on your responsibilities care for the well being of the team and the development of the individuals in it.<p>About tons of priorities: Here I struggle more myself, because I'm not in the position to delegate much of my own work.<p>What I do: I write down everything (for me it's org-mode, but that's a matter of taste). This includes tasks of others I delegated (in my system marked as WAIT). ~10% of my tasks are marked as high priority.<p>This waiting thing however drives me mad. Within my team we use a ticketing system and things get done, but I constantly have to do things with ~7 people outside of my department and have to run after them constantly. Even if they have to-do tools where I make them tickets. I'm at ~30 todo items (that's low for me) and ~70 waiting (that's normal).
I got a lot of responsibility quite quickly so I would say I am in this situation. There are a few things I try to do to overcome the problem:<p>- You can't do everything and you can't do it perfect every time but you can try your best every time.<p>- People you work with are older, smarter and more experienced. So make use of it, ask questions and make it clear that you are willing to learn everything where you lack knowledge.<p>- Look out for people who have certain capabilities which you would like to adopt. For example how they interact with a customers or how they organize tasks. Observe how they do that and what their workflow is. Try it and figure out if it fits you too. You can also ask for tips as these people had to figure it out too.<p>- Reflect. After some time look back at your work and figure out where things went wrong. Change your workflow to avoid that it happens again.<p>- Everyone wings it on an everyday basis, so you can do it too.
Just to note, it is usually portrayed as a natural career path, but I think it is a totally different profession. Managing people != engineering. There are lots of veteran coders still doing their jobs as independent contributors even in their 50s and 60s or more.
Delegate and play other people into strong positions. You cannot do all, and most importantly you shouldn't. Trust other peoples judgement and/or nudge/ask/bait them in the right direction without forcing a solution down their throat.
Relax and enjoy the responsibilities. Your day will shift to doing mundane or obvious work that you're now in a position to make better. Listen and ask questions so you can make your position useful and everyone can enjoy and be inspired to keep doing great work!
Like preparing for any other new challenge. How would you prepare for using a new tech at work? You would read about it, find a mentor, and possibly take classes. So do the same.