Warning: if you are looking for an angry rant you won't find it here, instead this is a article about a truly good manager.

Like most people who have been in IT for as long as me, I’ve worked with some pretty dodgy management over the years. There have been times where I was sure Scott Adams was sitting in my cube farm, stealing ideas for dilbert.

I came to Ephox knowing that this wouldn’t be the case. I came knowing that I was going to be working for a good manager, Brett. Brett takes management, leadership and people seriously, as you can see in his recent blog post about a leadership course he is attending. Here he talks about what he has been learning about management and leadership, and how much he already understands and implements. You may read it, and think that he is perhaps self-deluded, but as someone who has been working for Brett, I can vouch for the fact that this isn't the case. Brett really does get people management. He understands the importance of putting people over process, and it makes a huge difference. It is his valuing of people that played a key part of my wanting to come to Ephox in the first place, and makes being a part of his team great.

Another thing that Brett does well is keeping commitments. In a recent InfoQ article on agile, there was the quote: ”…one of the quickest ways to take the wind out of a person’s sails is to break a commitment…”

I can’t think of a single commitment that Brett hasn't worked really hard to keep. He does well at making the right commitments, and sticking by them. One real instance of this that really sticks out in my mind was when I was nearing the end of my time in support. I could see that there might be value in me holding off transitioning (and I was willing to do so), but Brett stuck with his word, and made sure that I was able to transfer to development. It was great that Brett put in the work to ensure that this happened, and this commitment help keep my motivation high.

Brett spent time working on his management skills, and I really think this investment has paid off. Brett does really well at leading his team of developers, and creating an environment where we want to be. Having a good engineering manager is going to be a key part of helping Ephox to grow, enabling us to hire and keep good engineers.

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 3rd, 2007 at 9:10 pm and is filed under Development, Ephox. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.