2023 03 17

I have always wondered if there is any use for managers at all. I have in my life had the experience of working in big MNCs, high growth startups as well as starting my own businesses. And in all my stints, I have purely been successful by being a leader.

There is a big difference between being a manager and a leader. A manager focuses on proxies for performance by the team. They care about compliance. When people come to work. Do they take leaves. Do they sit in their seats. Do they attend the meetings. They enforce policies.

In my opinion, all this is not required if you can inspire people to do better, leading by example. I have always done work independently and people around me look at me and they do better. And this has worked out pretty well all these while.

So, what is the real need for managers? If managers are so critical for efficiency in large organisations, how come the military doesn't have managers?

Every manager I have met are idiots. They aren't leaders. They know less than their subordinates and so have trust issues and are always threatened about their position. They can't inspire people to be better. And hence resort to compliance and policies to make sure their subordinates work. Most of them try to control information flow to hold on to their jobs.