I’m trying to help a former work buddy who is now at Microsoft with something, and the deeper we talk about the issue(s) at hand, the more apparent it becomes that Microsoft is violently allergic to top-down leadership. It’s kind of amazing. And pitiful.
@MookyTroubadour do you mean top-down or bottom-up?
Because bottom-up leadership is usually what you want... that's where the people in the field (usually technical staff) drive the decisions being made, instead of out-of-touch bureaucrats, execs, and administrative functionaries with inflated egos.
@IrelandTorin I mean like, “these are corporate binding rules (or similar) and you will adhere to them, or you will be replaced with someone who can” will never happen there.
@MookyTroubadour Admittedly I work in a rather different field (I'm a power engineer FWIW) but in my experience that kind of leadership ends up getting in the way of solving problems at least as often as it actually solves problems.
And in my particular line of work, problems can do millions of dollars in damage in a matter of hours... so if a diktat gets in the way of solving problems, it's either promptly rolled back or summarily completely ignored by the entire technical staff.
@IrelandTorin as a former Amazon guy, I appreciate concise and clear mandates, a la Jeff’s API mandate: https://nordicapis.com/the-bezos-api-mandate-amazons-manifesto-for-externalization/