A month and a half ago, I sent a post on LinkedIn that I would do free career mentoring sessions for anyone who wants it.
I aimed to share my experience with them and learn from their experiences and challenges. So I set up a Calendly event and shared it with them.
Since I shared the link, I have had calls with 12 people, some more than once. They were all in technology in some way or another; here is the spread:
I will list the things I have learned running these sessions.
Managers need to skill up.
Many people I mentored raised issues they should have solved with their managers, but managers aren't good enough. We need to train our managers better so they can take better care of our engineers.
We have all heard that people leave bad managers, not bad employers. This sentence has never been more true than during this pandemic. We need a new breed of good people managers, not just great engineers.
The root cause? Not the managers. All of them are trying hard to do their job with what they have.
We need to train our managers better and provide them with support in the complex decisions they have to make (like firing people). There are books about management, but we need to put a lot more effort into this.
I launched an M-zero program to train and mentor aspiring managers in my current job. Help them ease into the position.
More companies should do it (I know I'm not the only one to do it, but everyone should).
