These are some of the lessons I had to learn the hard way as I started managing a team of PMs.

  • “As a manager, you can’t really change people. You can only share pointers so they can change themselves, when they are ready to do it. I always knew this, but I only became a better manager when I truly accepted it.” - Shreyas Doshi’s tweet.

  • “Don’t expect others to do your best. This helped me a lot when I transitioned from being an IC to a manager. Being a type A personality and a compulsive perfectionist, definitely helped me in being an excellent engineer and tech lead. I was expecting others to perform at my level of competence and perfectionism. So essentially even if some one did their best it would often fall short in my eyes. And a thank you sounded empty instead of sincere since it was followed with what can be done better. So as a manager I was told, everyone does their best, they don’t have to do your best. As a manager it’s my job to figure out everyone’s unique skills and channel them to achieve team success. I hope that helps.” - Anonymous Blind comment.