&gt; The &quot;no true manager&quot; argument is always brought out<p>That&#x27;s a fair point- I won&#x27;t say there aren&#x27;t any <i>bad</i> managers- there are sociopaths attracted to the field. But I don&#x27;t think you&#x27;ve met any of the good ones either. I&#x27;m sorry to hear that.<p>&gt; Guess who inevitably fills management jobs at medium to large companies.<p>The sociopath-style manager will only have short-term gains compared to the managers who&#x27;ve acquired the skill set for the domain. One&#x27;s people will be unhappy and quit; the other&#x27;s will stay and encourage friends to join. After a few years of this, when upper management want to promote to a manager-of-managers, the long-term results will speak for themselves.<p>That&#x27;s how I <i>lost</i> my best manager- he succeeded so widely that he was promoted up another level (where he continued to do very well).<p>My advice to you is to consider how <i>you</i> would behave as a manager. How would you run a team of ICs such that they&#x27;d be happy, productive, and meeting all goals? It&#x27;s not about whether you&#x27;d want to or not, it&#x27;s how you&#x27;d approach the problem.