My Reflections - My Managers

In these 12 years of Journey in Software, I got a chance to work with some really great Managers. Every manager is wonderful... the way I am today is the way my Managers are with me. I am just a reflection of all my Managers (in work), everyone is so wonderful, I did learn a lot from everyone. There are few wonderful words/gestures which I remember every day, which I learned from my Managers from different companies and which I try to implement every day. Here are few of them.

1. One day I was very mad (didn't remember why) and went to my Manager. My Manager was very cool and told me, whatever you do, whether right or wrong, I will support you always. I believe in you, so go ahead and do what you think is right. That's like magic words which i remember every day. It gave me lot of confidence to fight for things that I think are right. If I don't have this kind of support, I would never had been a good tester. Of course the first thing you need to do is to earn this trust and it takes lot of effort to earn one's trust.
2. Support the team when they are in trouble - This was not explicitly told to me but learned it as my Managers implemented this. Be ready to take the beating yourself but don't let anyone touch or point your team if you really believe in the team/person.
3. Think of the question before you act - This is one of the wonderful things that I learned. Always think of question and see how you can beat the other person to death if they ask this question. If you don't have the answer, don't do the task until you find an answer or do it in an alternate way so that you won't get this question.
4. There is a right way to do things and there is also a way that everyone wants to see. I really don't want to explain this. You have to talk to me in person if you want details on this and you shouldn't be my Manager or Manager's Manager to know the answer.
5. Always be a role model to your team, especially if you are a lead or above. Your team tries to learn from you and will follow you in many occasions. Show the team why you are in this position. Work is the first main thing, gain the respect of the team by being on top of the work. Apart from work, there are million other things. Your dedication, punctuality, commitment and so on and so forth, everything counts and matters.
6. Never hire an average guy - One of my Manager always used to say this. Never hire an average guy. It's good to hire great performers. It's OK to hire a poor performer, we can fire them when they don't perform. Never ever hire average performer's, they will kill the company. You can't really fire them because they do their work. They really can't go beyond a specific limit and all the main load goes to the top performers and you over kill the top performers. This way the whole company will sink. So I am OK if you hire a poor performer but never hire an average performer.

Finally I will end with a quote that one of our boss in my current company always says - It has taken a lot of great people to make me look this good.