The Software Development Manager Role Is An Oxymoron

Managing: adjective
1. BRITISH having executive control or authority “the managing director”

See also: Management

In my post of a couple of year back entitled How To Be A Great Software Development Manager, I closed with the suggestion that great software development managers work themselves out of a job. Well, out of that job, anyways.

Given that effective software development is about quality relationships, effective collaboration, and sound cognitive function, then may I invite you to consider the implications and impact of power-over relationships – such as the manager – managed relationship – on these three aspects?

Here’s my take:

Quality relationships thrive on direct dialogue (as contrasted with the intermediated dialogue implicit in management hierarchies). And the coercion implicit in the manager’s role, as a form of violence, always serves to undermine humane relationships, however benign the intent.

Collaboration thrives when purpose ((and thus direction) is held in common, rather than handed down from “above” (another form of subtle, yet significant, coercion).

Cognitive function thrives under conditions of eustress (contrasted with the conditions of distress arising from e.g. being coerced or otherwise persuaded to do things not obviously related to the declared common purpose). Fear, however veiled, and in whatever form, always impairs cognitive function.

The manager – managed relationship exemplified the dysfunctions mentioned above, undermining as it does the quality of fellowship-style relationships (power-over rather than power-with), collaboration, and cognitive function.

There’s also a variety of research showing the dysfunctions inherent in the (related) leader – follower relationship.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line here is, does it make any kind of sense to create the kind of conditions so inherently antithetical to effective software development (and other kinds of collaborative knowledge work)?

If we were starting from scratch, absent the baggage of history and expectation, would we ever choose to institute the manager – managed relationship, especially in our software development organisations? And what price are these organisation paying, largely unnoticed, for continuing to carry that baggage?

– Bob

Further Reading

Power and Love ~ Adam Kahane
Flow: The Psychology of Happiness ~ Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi