I’m currently reading Why Running Matters: Lessons in life, pain and exhilaration by Ian Mortimer. Just a quarter through the book and already there are several points he makes that are excellent. One in particular has prompted me to finally write a post which I’ve been meaning to get to for years:

…a stronger incentive is my firm belief that we should tailor our lives to fit our personalities and not simply adopt off-the-peg lifestyles - Ian Mortimer. “Why Running Matters”

This is excellent advice.

We thrive and make our greatest contribution when we know our interests and strengths, and design a life that is a good fit for these. We are diminished when we adopt roles that are a bad fit for who we are.

Yet many of us do this.

…and the reality of the society that we’re in is that there are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet screaming desperation… at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don’t need to impress people they don’t like. Nigel Marsh. Work Life Balance is an Ongoing Battle

The ‘quiet screaming desperation’ part of that quote reminds me of my own experience of management.

Climbing the wrong ladder

I spent the early part of my career striving to get into management. I saw career development as moving up the rungs of management. By twenty-five I’d succeeded in getting my first management role and was responsible for a team of five people. I was also covering for the head of department for weeks at a time.

Much to my surprise I quickly discovered that I really didn’t like being a line manager.

If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster. Stephen R. Covey

The second, perhaps bigger, surprise was how profoundly this affected my quality of life. It wasn’t mild unhappiness or job dissatisfaction; I was deeply unhappy and utterly preoccupied with my work troubles. This misery tainted every aspect of my life - all day at work, all evening at home. I was unable to sleep at night and downcast all weekend.

Your job is an experience too. It’s not simply there while you do it - the way a porsche is simply there fading to the back of your mind while you drive it. Your job monopolises your thoughts. It demands constant intensive engagement - which is great if you love it. But if you hate it you’ve got a serious problem on your hands. You can’t hope to be distracted from your career by other thoughts. Rolf Dobelli, The Art of the Good Life

I can still remember how puzzled people were about how much it was affecting me. Many were also managers facing the same issues as me but it was clear they saw the impact the job was having on me as disproportionate.

I can understand that now. There is nothing inherently bad about being a manager, just as there is nothing inherently bad about (almost) any job. But if a role is at odds with an individual’s strengths and interests it can become a source of great misery. That’s the case for management and me; for someone else it might be software development.

I left that job for a policy specialist role. This was a demanding role and I quickly established myself as an effective person that could be counted upon. I was almost always the last person in the building at night - but that was OK because I was doing something that resonated with me. I thrived in this role, as I did with my next two policy roles.

Yet, about four years later I was convinced by the head of my team to take on line management responsibility again. Within weeks I was just as unhappy and decided to move on as soon as I could, promising myself that I would never take a management job again.

What followed was a long process of identifying exactly what makes me tick and roles that are well aligned to those strengths. For me, that is software development and I’ve spent more than a decade of work and study to become the best developer I can be. My aim is to be among the best developers in the industry.

So, why this blog post?

Because I’ve been reflecting on this a lot recently as I think about my career development. I’m currently a technical lead and it’s not uncommon for senior technical specialists to move into management.

But management is not for me, and I want to be honest and up-front about this.

I’m sufficiently self-aware and experienced to know management is not compatible with my personal strengths, aspirations and interests. I have absolutely no enthusiasm for it and, if I’m honest, the prospect fills me with a mixture of dread and despair.

But that’s OK.

There are many, many things that are a good fit for me - and I’ve identified a career path that is very well suited to these: being a great software developer. And the world needs great software developers a lot more than it needs a mediocre manager.

As I reflect on this, I realise I was very fortunate to have learned this about myself quite early in my career. It forced me to proactively identify and pursue a career path that would allow me to make a significant contribution to an organisation’s success while also being well-tailored to my personal attributes.