Leadership Readiness training
I have been a manager for a couple of months now and I was invited to participate in the Leadership Readiness Program. The material was really interesting. It is clear that IBM intends its people managers (managers who are responsible for teams with at least four members to devote all their resources to devote all their efforts to make them successful. That is great but at the same time it means that once you are a manager you automatically have to leave the field.
Personally, I do not like the idea to stop visiting customers and stop learning technical stuff. I feel that this is essential if I have to evaluate the performance of everyone within my team and also serve as a mentor. Therefore, I plan to keep learning about the new technologies that IBM releases and spend at least a couple of hours a day on the field.
Fellow managers tell me that cannot be achieved. They say that administrative tasks are too demanding. They may be right. Since becoming a manager I am actually working harder but it isn’t that bad, since I still have enough time time to spend it with my family. I had to reduce the time I spend developing, though. However, I am still working on my Cocoa projects and hope to be able o release something before Christmas. I will let you know.