Three questions to determine if you want to be a people manager

A lot of organizationals nowadays have two broad tracks that you can progress within - the individual contributor (IC) track and the people manager track. These tracks are typically parallel, meaning that you don't have to be forced into a people manager track if you want to continue progressing.

That means people management is far more often a choice than a necessity or a pursuit that stems from wanting bigger titles and more compensation. If it's a choice though, how do you know that people management is something you want to do?

People management can seem really abstract if you only read about it. It's one of those things where you really have to try it to understand the subtle nuances of management. It also looks really different at different levels of people management (e.g. a line manager vs. a director). But, there are some questions that you can use to at least give yourself a first pass at determining if people management is something you might enjoy/thrive in without needing to commit fully into taking on a people management role to find out if this is the path you'd like to pursue.

Question 1: How do you like to drive impact?

Both ICs and people managers drive impact. How you do it is very different. Weirdly enough, people think just being an IC means you only drive impact individually. That's actually wrong, especially at increasingly senior levels. Both people managers and ICs need to drive impact through others. However, people managers do this by building up teams and ensuring the teams are focused on the right things. People managers spot problems/opportunities and rally up the people around them to form teams in prioritizing solving them.

ICs also spot problems/opportunities. Instead of forming teams, they often work on the problem directly. They work with others who are brought together to tackle problems/opportunities. Both still need to deal with people, it's just different.

Both get to solve problems and both get to have big impact. The question is how you like to get at solving them. The way in which you solve them also has some limitations, and this might be a clue as to which direction you lean more towards. As an IC, there's a limit to how many problems you can directly solve at a time. As a people manager, you're limited by your team(s). As someone who is really good at spotting problems/opportunities, it drove me nuts realizing that I was the rate limiter for moving things faster. I cared more about the problems being solved, than the problem itself – I care about both, but I felt more strongly about making broader progress and that tipped me more into the people manager world.

Question 2: Do problems around organizational structure light you up?

As a people manager, one of your core responsibilities is ensuring the environment for your team(s) is set up so that teammates can thrive and perform at their best. As you progress higher and higher on the people management track, inevitably this leads to solving questions like:

• What's the difference between junior, intermediate, and senior?
• How do we determine what levels people operate at and progress?
• How do we structure our teams to optimize for our key delivery principles?
• What team(s) do we need in order to achieve the plan and what is within our budget?
• How do we plan and adapt?

You'll notice that none of this requires you to say that you like people. It's a bit of a misconception that you have to be a "people person" in order to be a great people manager. You don't have to like people. You have to like people problems (like those above), you have to like winning through your people, and you have to care about people. But you don't have to be the person that extraverted person that everyone loves being around in order to enjoy people management.

Question 3: What do you want to be proud of, 5-10 years down the line?

There's two scenarios that might play out. Firstly as an IC – if you think about your current role as an IC and where it might lead you in 5 years or longer, what endpoint might that be? If you're an engineer, maybe that's becoming a Staff Developer. Now think a bit about what kind of work an IC of that level might do, and some of the big ticket items that might have been done along the way. There are probably some big wins and achievements. Mountains that have been climbed and that you can brag about.

Now let's think about the people manager scenario. If you think 5 years or longer, what might your endpoint be here? Perhaps a director? Perhaps an executive? There will also be achievements. But here, you might someday come across individuals who have worked with you. Individuals who you coached and developed over the years and then went on to do bigger and better things – achievements that you yourself wouldn't be doing.

Which of these resonate more with you? If you know for certain that seeing individuals years in the future do bigger and better things is a win for you, then you'll love becoming a great people manager. If that doesn't matter to you and you prefer having a list of accomplishments, that doesn't bar you from being a people manager. People management as a path can also have big achievements, but know that there are some achievements that aren't won by being a manager. They're achievements that belong to the ICs that you coached, developed, and lead to the win.