Why Most People Become Managers Before They’re Ready

Most people become managers for a reason that has nothing to do with management: it was the only way to be paid more.

The structural problem

In most organisations the individual contributor ladder stops several rungs below the management ladder. Someone excellent at the work reaches the ceiling and is offered a different job as a reward for being good at this one.

Companies that maintain a genuine senior individual-contributor track have fewer bad managers, not because they train better, but because fewer people become managers by default.

What changes, and what nobody says

The job stops being about output and starts being about other people’s output. The feedback loop lengthens from days to quarters. The skills that made you good at the previous job are largely irrelevant to this one, and the written communication that was useful becomes essential.

• You will do less of what you are good at, permanently
• Your effect on the work becomes indirect and hard to see
• The hardest part is [stakeholder management](@skill:stakeholder-management), which nobody interviews for

The questions to ask before accepting

Is there a senior individual-contributor path here, and has anyone actually taken it? Would I take this role if it paid the same as staying? What support exists in the first year, specifically?

If the answer to the second is no, the promotion is a pay rise wearing a job title, and it is worth naming that before accepting it. The software engineering and product design guides both cover where that fork appears.