Thanks for taking the time to comment. I don’t believe that the manager needs to have a strong technical background. But they should (1) never have to ask the question “what is it you do here” to someone that reports to them and (2) they should be someone who has the ability to inspire others to become better.

I had Vinny and I was lucky. After Vinny my luck ran out. Most people never get a chance at having Vinny. And I think that is part of the reason we see so many people complain that they can’t find an “expert”. Not only are people not inspired to become better, but the people looking for the experts wouldn’t know one if they found one.

First time to comment on your blog. Great blog post on this topic. And quoting Dr. John Maxwell, “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” Most managers think that having a “title” is what makes them what they are. Leaders are in a totally different league of their own. They inspire, coach, lead, demonstrate, teach, etc. people to be the best that they can. They’re like miners looking for gold in the dirt. They don’t look at the dirt, they seek for the gold. And while I don’t totally agree that they need to have a strong technical background to manage and lead people well, it is a factor to be considered. I have had a great manager in the past who, as a natural born sales guy, tried to learn as much as he can to understand the people he was managing. And that was all that mattered to his subordinates.

I think the best way to find a good manager is to be one ourselves. You don’t need to have a “title” to be one – just do it. Inspire others, teach, coach, demonstrate, lead, etc. By simply doing, you’ll end up getting the title in the long run. And, when that time comes, you’ll no longer care about the title because you’ve already lived it

Of course, this all comes with the caveat that the company posting the job needs to acknowledge that it is not a reasonable to expect that you will find someone who has the entire list of desired skills, but it is much easier to find someone who has some of them and a desire to develop their skills in those other areas.

Yeah, I had not thought about that angle until today. Thanks!

Thanks for the feedback, much appreciated!

I was like Robert in one shop. I did a little bit of everything.

When I left the company they ended up hiring 3 people to do what I did. It was like you said I acquired those skills over time and the skills were not what you would normally see in any one individual.

Companies need to be careful about things like this.

Another reason why agencies stuff crap on to job listings is to negotiate down applicants’ salaries/rates. So they throw in excessive numbers of years of experience, oddball requirements like coding, helpdesk, or XML memorization tricks knowing that most will not list these, then they say “well, we’d love to give you market rates for you, but you are missing some of the requirements.”

Most of the best DBAs I’ve worked with *do* have all those skills. But they intentionally leave them off resumes (don’t want to be a coder) or play them down.

It’s all about the $$$.