Results of a study of engineering managers at Microsoft. The slides were background material to a talk given at the International Conference of Software Engineering 2018 at Gothenburg, Sweden. Full paper at http://thomas-zimmermann.com/publications/files/kalliamvakou-tse-2018.pdf

1. What makes a great
manager of
software engineers?
Eirini
Kalliamvakou
Christian
Bird
Tom
Zimmermann
Andrew
Begel
Rob
DeLine
Daniel
German

2. Why study managers in
software engineering?

3. 153
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2011), 84, 153–172
C⃝ 2010 The British Psychological Society
The
British
Psychological
Society
www.wileyonlinelibrary.com
Understanding transformational leadership–
employee performance links: The role of
relational identification and self-efficacy
Fred O. Walumbwa∗ and Chad A. Hartnell
Department of Management, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State
University, Tempe, Arizona, USA
We examined how employee perceptions of relational identification with the supervisor
and self-efficacy mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and
supervisor-rated performance. Performance is used here to refer to the individual’s
ability to be creative, innovative, inspiring, and take on challenging tasks to achieve
organizational goals for the greater good. Using a sample of 426 employees and
their 75 immediate supervisors from a large automobile dealership, hierarchical linear
modelling results revealed that relational identification with the supervisor mediated
the relationship between transformational leadership and self-efficacy, which was then
positively related to employee performance. Implications for future research, theory,
and practice are discussed.
Prior quantitative reviews of the literature on transformational leadership have produced
a consistent pattern of positive relationships between transformational leadership and
follower attitudes, behaviours, and performance (Dumdum, Lowe, & Avolio, 2002; Lowe,
Kroeck, & Sivasubramaniam, 1996; see Avolio, Bass, Walumbwa, & Zhu, 2004, for a
review). Recent evidence provided by Judge and Piccolo (2004) reconfirmed the positive
relationship previously reported between transformational leadership and performance –
an average corrected meta-correlation of .44. Because of the well-documented positive
associations between transformational leadership and follower attitudes and behaviours,
such as performance (Bono & Judge, 2003), it is important to further extrapolate
the underlying psychological and motivational mechanisms through which transfor-
mational leaders motivate followers to achieve desired outcomes (Kark & Van Dijk,
7). noted that a variety of different influence processes are involved in
These processes include identification (e.g. Kark, Shamir, &
chool of Business,
Middle Manager Leadership and Frontline
Employee Performance: Bypass, Cascading, and
Moderating Effectsjoms_902 654..678
Jixia Yang, Zhi-Xue Zhang and Anne S. Tsui
City University of Hong Kong; Peking University; Arizona State University
ABSTRACT We investigated the relationship between middle managers’ transformational
leadership and the performance of frontline employees who are two levels below the mid
managers. We identified two pathways through which this cross-level influence occurs an
tested two moderators operating on these two pathways. The first pathway is a direct effe
from middle managers to employees, bypassing the influence of employees’ immediate
supervisor (the bypass effect). We further hypothesized that the bypass effect is moderated
the employees’ collectivistic value. The second pathway is a cascading of leadership beha
from middle managers to first-line supervisors, whose transformational leadership then
enhances employees’ performance (the cascading effect). We further hypothesized that th
cascading effect is moderated by the supervisors’ power distance value. These hypotheses
tested with a sample of 491 frontline employees, 98 frontline supervisors, and 30 middle
managers in three organizations in China. The three-level hierarchical linear modelling r
supported the four hypotheses.
INTRODUCTION
In the past 20 years, transformational leadership (Bass, 1985) has emerged as the
Journal of Management Studies 47:4 June 2010
doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6486.2009.00902.x
The Journal of Systems and Software 123 (2017) 176–189
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
The Journal of Systems and Software
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jss
Continuous software engineering: A roadmap and agenda
Brian Fitzgerald, Klaas-Jan Stol∗
Lero—the Irish Software Research Centre, University of Limerick, Ireland
a r t i c l e i n f
Managers impact outcomes

4. Managers impact people

5. How to manage software engineers?

6. What makes a great
manager of software
engineers?

7. Data collection and processing
37 interviews
~30h of audio
~200 pages
of transcripts
Coding
83 items
Card
sorting
15
attributes
1
Developers
Leads
Managers
Managers of managers
WHAT attributes?
WHY are they important?
HOW are they used in practice?

8. Data collection and processing
37 interviews
~30h of audio
~200 pages
of transcripts
Coding
83 items
Card
sorting
15
attributes
1
Responses Statistical
analysis
Conclusions
2
Validation
survey

9. Data collection and processing
37 interviews
~30h of audio
~200 pages
of transcripts
Coding
83 items
Card
sorting
15
attributes
1
Responses Statistical
analysis
Conclusions
2
Validation
survey
Responses Statistical
analysis
Conclusions
3
Knowledge
Work
survey
Conclusions

10. What engineers and managers
perceive as important for
engineering managers that are
seen as great
“First-line
manager”
engineering
team
upper
management

11. What attributes matter
(aka the nature of the role)

12. Framework for great managers
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization

13. Framework for great managers
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization

14. A great manager supports experimentation
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
“The manager I had actually told
me before I started that if it
doesn’t work out it’s ok, as long
as he knew I put in my effort he
was going to support me and not
let it affect my review, and he
stuck to his word.”
A great manager supports experimentation
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
Strategy:
Signal that experimentation is safe
“The manager I had actually told
me before I started that if it
doesn’t work out it’s ok, as long
as he knew I put in my effort he
was going to support me and not
let it affect my review, and he
stuck to his word.”

15. A great manager supports experimentation
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
“We built someone’s fun project
into a product at one instance.
Since we are relying on that tool we
have debt now to pay because the
person was treating it as a hobby
and wanted to make progress fast in
the background and not disturb any
project work.
We encourage that but if we don’t
do it with some quality gates, we
inherit more debt later.”
A great manager supports experimentation
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
“We built someone’s fun project
into a product at one instance.
Since we are relying on that tool we
have debt now to pay because the
person was treating it as a hobby
and wanted to make progress fast in
the background and not disturb any
project work.
We encourage that but if we don’t
do it with some quality gates, we
inherit more debt later.”
Strategy:
Apply minimum quality criteria,
even to experiments

16. A great manager recognizes individuality
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
“I had a manager that first asked
me what I was interested in and
what I like and what my talents are
and he tried to give me work related
to that. I feel a lot more
comfortable and happier like that.”
A great manager recognizes individuality
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
“I had a manager that asked me
what I was interested in and what I
like and what my talents are and he
tried to give me work related to
that. I feel a lot more comfortable
and happier like that.”
Strategy:
Tailor work considering
preferences and skills

17. A great manager drives alignment
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
“The way I see it every team
member are the experts of their
area, they know the best things that
can come out of that area. But they
can push in different directions…
A great manager drives alignment
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
“The way I see it every team
member are the experts of their
area, they know the best things that
can come out of that area. But they
can push in different directions.
I pose a question along the lines of
“hey, here are some of the
challenges our business is facing,
how do you think you can help in
these respects? Here are some
thoughts or maybe seeds of lines of
thinking, but help us come up with
a strategy together, what are some
things that we can do to get there.”
Strategy:
Engage developers in
discussing strategy
…I pose a question along the lines
of “hey, here are some of the
challenges our business is facing,
how do you think you can help in
these respects? Here are some
thoughts or maybe seeds of lines of
thinking, but help us come up with
a strategy together, what are some
things that we can do to get there.”

18. How technical is a
great manager?

19. How technical is a great manager?
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
“The manager understands the
lingo and understands the systems
the team is working on, and what it
takes to get the job done.”
“They are [emphasis in the original] NOT
actively programming, they don't
interject themselves into the
programming specifics”

20. 25%
75%
average technical skills
excellent social skills
excellent technical skills
average social skills
“If hiring a manager…”
Candidate A
Candidate B

21. “If hiring a manager…”
25%
75%
average technical skills
excellent social skills
excellent technical skills
average social skills
“Their work as a great manager is
to enable reports to perform as
brilliant engineers themselves. It is
more important to manage people
than to manage the product.”

22. “If hiring a manager…”
“Ultimately management is about
people. If there is a weakness in
somebody's technical skills, that is a
gap that can be closed with effort.
But lack of people/social skills, lack
of empathy, or inability to bring
people and personalities together to
solve common problems... that's
very hard to bridge.”
25%
75%
excellent technical skills
average social skills
average technical skills
excellent social skills

23. Take-aways

24. How to manage software engineers?
Use attributes as guide, and tailor
* Software engineers need convincing
*
More to learn:
How do the attributes relate to outcomes?
How to operationalize the attributes?

25. How technical is the role?
Technical mastery has diminishing returns
for an engineering manager’s team
More to learn:
How to select/promote engineering managers?
How to train engineering managers?

26. And there is more…

27. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Critical
Not
Important
Builds Relationships
Is Technical
Facilitates Interaction
Is Available
Guides Team
Builds Culture
Drives Alignment
Protects Flow
Supports Experimentation
Inspires Team
Recognizes Individuality
Cultivates Fairness
Enables Autonomy
Grows Talent
Pos. Work Environment
Transactions on Software Engineering
TABLE 3: Change in ratings of attribute by demographic. Each demographic’s rating for an attribute is compare
for that attribute for the majority class in that demographic category. For instance, females are compared to ma
compared to the U.S. Each difference shown is statistically significant. Coefficients for Mgr Group Size is the change
person in the group being managed and for Years at Microsoft is the change per additional year at Microsoft.
Positive coefficients indicate higher importance. Negative coefficients indicate lower importance.
Demographic Attribute Change
Role: Managers (90) builds a relationship with team members " 1.21
compared to Engineers (465) inspires the team " 0.98
builds team culture " 0.97
is available " 0.60
grows talent " 0.54
Gender: Female (59) is technical " 0.83
compared to Male (494) inspires the team " 0.80
facilitates external communication " 0.62
guides the team " 0.53
grows talent " 0.46
Region: China (32) is technical " 1.02
compared to U.S. (410) recognizes individuality " 0.70
guides the team " 0.65
Region: India (56) builds team culture " 0.99
compared to U.S. (410) builds a relationship with team members " 0.85
grows talent # 0.55
Region: Europe (50) drives alignment # 0.53
compared to U.S. (410) recognizes individuality # 0.50
Mgr Group Size (in people) clears path to execution # 0.01
enables autonomy # 0.01
Years at Microsoft grows talent # 0.03
in 9.2.
We looked for demographic differences in the impor-
tance rating for the attributes. For each attribute we built
a linear regression model using the demographics (gen-
der, location, role, group size, experience) as independent
variables and the importance rating of the attribute as the
dependent variable. Table 3 summarizes the results and
shows only the statistically significant coefficients, grouped
by demographic. Each coefficient indicates the change in
importance for an attribute relative to an artificial baseline
(intercept) constructed as the majority class for each cate-
gorical demographic (e.g. gender, region, etc.) and a value
of zero for numerical values; the regression model intercept
corresponds to a male engineer, working in the U.S. in a
team of zero people with no years of experience at Microsoft.
In interpreting the magnitude of the change, recall that since
the interquartile range of responses for most attributes was
just 2 units3
, a 1 unit increase is a non-trivial change. The
change indicated for engineering manager group size and
years at Microsoft is the change when the demographic
increases by one. For example, engineers in a team of 100
ing managers—grows talent (+0.46) and gu
(+0.53)—the findings indicate that female pa
to learn from technically stronger managers.
One of the goals in our study was to inves
gineers and engineering managers compare in
what attributes are important for engineering
While there is alignment in views, our stat
shows differences between the two group
managers consider certain attributes more i
engineers do. Referring to Table 3, the attri
largest coefficients (ranked more important
than engineers) are related to motivational
are building a relationship with team memb
spiring the team (+0.98), and building team c
Engineering managers thus appear to rank
create a feeling of being part of a team hi
engineers do.
Growing talent is another attribute that eng
agers seem to value as more important, co
gineers (+0.54). However, grows talent ranke
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSE.2017.2768368, IEEE
Transactions on Software Engineering
14
TABLE 4: Differences in importance placed on the manager attributes by each discipline in the knowledge worker survey,
relative to the Software Engineering discipline. The importance placed by Software Engineers was folded into the intercept
of the regression model and is reported in the column ”Software Engineering”. For the other columns, a positive value indicates
that a discipline places a higher importance on that attribute than the Software Engineering discipline; a negative value indicates a
lower importance on that attribute. For bold attributes, all knowledge worker domains showed a statistically significant difference
in the same direction compared to Software Engineering.
Attribute Software Business Programs Finance Marketing Program Sales
Engineering & Operations Management
Respondents 563 193 106 184 265 266
Facilitates external communication 7.86 0.47
Grows talent 8.93 +0.40
Guides the team 8.19 +0.50
Clears path to execution 8.30 0.38
Inspires the team 8.43 +0.54 +0.48 +0.54 +0.27 +0.56
Drives alignment 8.33 +0.68 +0.46 +0.58 +0.45 +0.67
Builds a relationship with team members 7.41 +0.65
Builds team culture 8.13 +0.59 +0.53 +0.64 +0.36 +0.88
Is technical/is domain expert 7.89 1.43 0.63 0.82 1.12 0.99
While our findings have novelty for software engineer- quainted with. Future research can investigate these aspects
Ranked attributes
Comparison between
demographics
Comparison between
disciplines

28. Thank you!
ikaliam@uvic.ca
Framework for great managers
Is available
Is technical
Cultivates
Motivates
Mediates
Maintains positive working
environment
Inspires the team
Builds team culture
Guides the team
Enables autonomy
Supports experimentation
Grows talent
Promotes fairness
Builds relationship with team
members
Recognizes individuality
Clears path to execution Facilitates external
communication
Drives alignment
manager
functions
levels of interaction
with Individual
with Team /
Organization
What makes a great
manager of software
engineers?
How technical is the role?
Technical mastery has diminishing returns
for an engineering manager’s team
How to manage software engineers?
Use attributes as guide, and tailor
* Software engineers need convincing
*
More to learn:
How do the attributes relate to outcomes?
How to operationalize the attributes?
How to manage software engineers?