The next time I interview for a new job, I'm going to ask this question - how do working managers choose between management work and individual contributions? It seems like the most important thing to learn before joining an organization because I would understand how the culture viewed management - is it a valuable function, a glossy label for supervisory tasks, or merely a career development crutch (but shaped like a carrot!) to reward strong individual performance?
I can already envision how my question will cause problems. The best-case scenario would be a confused interviewer, perhaps buying time with some form of stammering, and maybe forcing a strained smile or slow nod, all preceding the inevitable canned conclusion - of course, it's impossible to know, for sure, what anyone might do, since the context of current priorities is very much a factor in any decision. This is when it would all fall apart for me, or at least for my candidacy, because I would stop to explain that I meant after all factors were considered, that I want to know what the decision is when it's entirely a fifty-fifty proposition - in short, what pressure does the culture exert on the working manager? It would fall apart because if I have to follow up, if I have to go through the step of asking for the answer again, then it's likely the interviewer doesn't want to give me the answer, which means no one in the organization wants to give me the answer; culture in an organization is like the current in a river - everyone in the water can feel the pull, and speak to it, which means evasion implies something unspeakable about the undertow, such that the swimmers fear the very articulation of the fact will discourage those on the banks from joining them.
The only sure thing in this situation would be my conclusion - pass - because from a nonresponse I can at least deduce that the organization doesn't regard managerial work with the same reverence it might reserve for traditionally independent contributions such as, say, programming, or producing a colorful report. This is vital in the context of my own role and its managerial function, but it's even more important in the sense that it will determine how my manager works with me - when I look at my list of qualifications for an ideal manager, I don't have "prioritizes his or her own work ahead of me" atop the list, in fact it's not even on the list; I never considered such an absurd possibility. What's the point of having a good manager if your good manager never manages? It's like a restaurant having its best cook cleaning tables. But most organizations have fooled themselves into the delusion of a part-time manager, a pattern I notice consistently in the notes I collect from peers about their careers, or in the history of my own experiences; the working manager is not only common, but ubiquitous, and in nearly all cases the order of words on the job description is accurate - working, manager.
