This was a response I was going to write to a blogpost about how to get promoted. I'm not actually a manager, and probably won't become one, but the thesis of this person's article about updating your mgr was peppered with responses along the lines of "my work speaks for itself" and "I just want to code, what's with all the popularity stuff?"
I wanted to write something from what I think my perspective would be if I were a manager. My opinions are, of course, my own.
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I'll add something from a career of working at startups and big corporations - I've seen a lot of people come and go from the field.
There's also a balance between interpersonal skills and competence - there's a required minimal level of each, but in general interpersonal skills wins out over competence in most managerial eyes. Not because we want everyone to be best friends (and if you think that's all there is to interpersonal skills you need some more experience), but because having you around raises everyone's game and at the end of the day that's all that really matters.
It's the kind of thing often lampooned with bad bosses having "crazy hawaiian shirt day", etc but the need is quite real. Any manager will tell you that inspiration is one of many things we'd love to create by management but can't. It's gold - what makes people go the extra mile, run the extra test, speak up with the extra idea.
It's easy to create fear, and fear can be a workable substitute. You can pull the "continued employment is your incentive" bit for a while but eventually the ones who can leave do and you're stuck with the ones who can't or won't.
However, what you really want to consistently make and exceed numbers is a shop where people get something more than a paycheck from showing up everyday and giving 110 percent. Their common sense tells them that the check is for 100 percent of the work - they need something else for that extra 10.
I'd look for interpersonal skills first and technical competence second. And that isn't necessarily whoever's telling me the most about what they're doing for the department; remember, I talk and listen to everyone. I can see what others think of you, and what you think of everyone else.
I want interpersonal skills because leads with interpersonal skills draw on the best efforts of the entire department. A technical hotshot feels increasing pressure to have all of the answers, all of the time, and becomes an increasing PITA to work with as their new lead duties take away from their technical skills-building time. They crash by either burning out or blowing up and you have to start all over.
This also often happens to architects in the opposite direction; they're too interpersonal (especially the ones gunning for CIO jobs) and become about winning not just approval but validation from senior management. They turn into white-paper and Gartner report specialists instead of keeping their skills sharp. Makes for great golf games and happy hours and vendor-of-the-quarter delivery of bleeding-edge solutions that don't work.
Learn how to identify problems, take ownership of the solution, sell the solution, implement the solution and hand it off to someone else. Doesn't matter how small. If you can do that - consistently, even in the most narrow of niches - you will be extremely marketable, both as a resource to your boss and in the wider job market if you choose to go that route. We actually like that - if you know you can leave but choose to stay you do better work.
That said, I like to know what's going on with my staff, and try to maintain an open-door policy as much as possible. Drop-ins are fine, but remember that I will always try and make time for you - be courteous by scaling the discussion to the timeframe we have. I don't mind talking about something you just did for five minutes but I don't want to spend my whole open-door time hashing over your ingenious use of a weak-hash algorithm to store the login attributes (also, that seemed to be working fine the way it was, last I heard - did you just make that change on your own?)
If you choose just sit in your cubicle and code all day, no offense but you're basically a code factory - a tool. Tools are useful but we periodically seek upgrades, typically via replacement because a tool's cost and fragility goes up the longer you keep them and you can get a new, cheaper, less fragile model every couple of years.
Your work does not speak for itself - I don't read source code. I look at results because the people I serve only care about outcomes, not solutions.
