How do you spot a dev or engineer who is ready for management?

1.8k viewscircle icon3 Comments
Sort by:
Fractional CIO in Services (non-Government)2 years ago

You don't spot them, you ask them! 

And you don't just promote them, you give them the skills you need first.

Organisations fail when they promote people before they are ready

Senior Director Engineering in Travel and Hospitality2 years ago

It's a two way process, there should be intent from a developer who wants to take the management path, and the second being another spotting those traits.
Management is leadership, so all traits of leadership - empathy, teamwork, communication, accountability, strategic thinking, self motivation gets that tick.

VP of Engineering in Banking2 years ago

A few things that may be good indicators:
* Care for others and can build good rapport within the team and also outside the team.
* Big picture thinking, not always thinking at the task level.
* Able to prioritize with good trade-off analysis.
* Care for how to unblock the team vs only how to unblock self.
* Taking interest in management/leadership through upskilling, mentoring, etc.
* Dare to raise important issues that others do not think about or care to talk about.

Content you might like

Inspiring a shared vision —evangelizing a vision that motivates others to act18%

Modeling the way — establishing standards of excellence and being the example for all employees42%

Challenging the process — promoting a continuous improvement mindset (the new status quo is not being satisfied with the status quo)24%

Enabling others to act — building high-performing teams based on trust and mutual respect11%

Encouraging the heart — giving people a sense of purpose at work.3%

View Results

Having a growth mindset — embracing continuous learning and personal development16%

Practicing inclusive leadership — ensuring everyone has a voice and feels valued and being aware of one's own biases36%

Being an agile learner — learning from all experiences, particularly in the face of challenges, and effectively applying lessons learned19%

Intellectual humility —accepting that you do not have all the answers and being open to learning from other people’s perspective24%

Other (comment below)4%

View Results