Ask HN: How do startups/lean teams successfully handle mat/pat leave?
If you are a manager taking leave then you need someone else to manage the team while you are out. Often there is nobody on the team who is really ready to manage it. Then you&#x27;ll need to get help from elsewhere; perhaps your manager can help out, or perhaps a manager elsewhere in the organization can assist.<p>It can be a tough situation because as a manager and a leader you have to take responsibility for what happens when you are on leave. Sometimes the replacement manager leads a mess and you are left responsible for it. Sometimes things will improve without you and company leadership won&#x27;t want you to resume your old job when you return.<p>Personally, and as a father, I was fortunate to work at a company which was very flexible about paternity leave. I really preferred taking a couple weeks off at the start, and then returning to work but just working 4 days a week for a while (and not very long hours). It was approximately the same amount of leave but just structured differently. I really advocate this (for men taking paternity leave, whose wife is going to take full time leave) if you can swing it.<p>There are two reasons. One is that it works out better at home. Honestly as a father with a young baby and a wife who is taking leave, your wife and child do not need you in the house 24&#x2F;7. A day a week to catch up on errands is great. Leaving work in time to make dinner is great. More than that, you just run out of useful stuff to do. And a six month old baby is really just about as much work as a three month old baby! Having five Fridays off to run errands with a six month old baby is more useful than using those same days of leave to take a whole week off with a three month old baby.<p>The second reason is that it works out better at work. If your manager is only working four days a week for a while and not working late, it&#x27;s basically fine, as long as you aren&#x27;t at some super intense startup. It isn&#x27;t disruptive to your team, you&#x27;re still available to help people, you&#x27;re still in touch with what&#x27;s happening at work.