So, you’ve just been promoted to the dark side of management but you don’t know how to lead your minions? Here are a few tips on keeping your plebeians in line.
Make Your Minions Do the Dirty Work
You shouldn’t worry yourself about work that’s underneath you, you get paid way to much. You’ve hired coder monkeys to handle everything from downed servers at 3am to documentation to those pesky clients. All you have to do is sit back and make sure they don’t lose focus.
Don’t Give Any Praise
Your minions just put in 100 hour weeks to get the feature launched on time? They get paid to do that work so there’s really no need to tell them they’re doing their job. Work horses don’t need to be told they’re doing a good job every time so why should your employees? As soon as you’re done you should give them more work since that’s what they need.
Belittle Your Minions
You’re the manager so that makes you better than everyone else. If they were as good as you, they’d be managing people themselves. This means you’ve earned the right to make the others know that they aren’t as good as you.
Always Leave Before Your Minions
Your time is way more valuable and you don’t want to wear yourself out. This means you should come to work later and leave earlier than your team. Besides, as long as you’re doing a good job guiding your newbies they should be able to carry on their work when you’re gone.
Avoid All Responsibility
If your staff messes something up it’s their fault not yours. Why should you be held responsible for something they’ve done. When the top brass asks you what happened make sure they know exactly who screwed up. This also secures your position because you’ll never do anything wrong.
Believe That Your Job Is More Valuable
Obviously the people underneath you wouldn’t be able to do their job without you. Who would lead them? You get paid more so that means you’re way more valuable than them. Make sure that they know you’re more valuable to the company.
Always Think You Are Right
Again, you’ve probably been there longer and you get paid more so that means you’re always right. When someone tries to tell you otherwise make sure you make them look bad to their co-workers; this will show them who’s boss.
If you’ve gotten to this point and haven’t realized you shouldn’t do any of these things you probably shouldn’t be managing people. If you realized that you should be doing exactly the opposite than go forth and manage!