Signs you might not be IT management material

In theory, everyone wants to climb the corporate ladder. With promotions come steps up that eventually land an employee in the coveted management echelon, with the opportunity to increase both their pay grade and influence.

Yet in practice--as anyone who has ever had a lousy boss or manager can tell you--not everyone is actually cut out to be a manager. Perhaps they're happiest buried in thick lines of code or have little patience for the schmoozing or interest in the visibility that come with more pivotal roles. Perhaps they're better suited for other things.

Though the fault is rarely with the individuals--all too often companies reward employees they don't want to lose with inflated titles and promotions, whether they're ready for prime time visibility or not--many could save themselves headaches further down their career path by understanding their own limitations and finding more suitable paths.

Here are eight telltale signs:

You hate bureaucracy

Fact is, managerial roles are rife with all the fixings of a bureaucracy--meetings and reports and reviews and pow-wows--and this will be what you spend the bulk of your time on.

"If you cringe when you go into a meeting with more than one person or you feel you would rather pluck out your eyeballs rather than go into a performance review of a subordinate, those are the very first signs that you should not become a manager," said Jim Lanzalotto, vice president of strategy and marketing at Yoh, a Philadelphia-based provider of IT staffing services.

You need a lot of support

Not all employees are the independent type. They might need to know that someone is looking out for them or checking their work; they might work best on teams. Though there is no detriment in having this approach to work, it's usually a bad fit in the management space.

"Managers get very little support, much less coaching from their boss," says Alam Allard, an executive coach based in Lawrenceville, Ga. "You're probably not cut out for management if you're not ready to take on more stress, challenges and headaches...without getting much support from above. Most managers are promoted, then realize they have to do all the work they've been doing all along...and then take on the extra work of managing a team, often without much of a raise."

You're in it for the title

There is no question that a title that connotes that you are within the upper ranks of your company can be impressive on a business card or slipped into a casual introduction.

"In our world, we value external titles and visible things. If you meet someone who is a director or manager of something, you think 'look at that guy. He's really successful.'" said Lanzalotto.

But if this is the reason you want it, or--even worse--you're unclear on your personal motives for accepting such a position, you could be in for a rough haul.

"You're probably not ready for management if you're not clear on your motivation for accepting the role: Is it for ego gratification, self-esteem boost, because you think it won't be that challenging, so, heck, why not?...or does it fit in your clearly thought out career acceleration plan?" said Allard.

You need to be liked

Nobody wants to be unpopular or outright loathed by other employees. But one of the realities of being the person who has to pull plugs, write pink slips and give performance reviews is that, odds are, a lot of people aren't going to like you or your message.

"When you accept a management role, you give up ALL rights to be liked. If you score low on assertiveness, you shouldn't be a manager (This is a very common problem and pitfall for managers.) If you shy away from addressing and resolving conflict, stay out of management. The odds are high that you will have at least one difficult team member the first year you are at it," said Allard.

You work best on a team of one

Management is ideally not just something someone is promoted into, but a natural fit for certain personality types, such as those that are born leaders.

"There are a lot of people who are great individual contributors. They're great performers, they get the job done, they execute but they're not leaders. Sometimes they're much more comfortable with operating what they need to do than the operation of what they need to do," said Lanzalotto.

"A great manager sets a vision, and executes well. If a manager cannot set a vision so that people understand why they are there every day, and they do not meet their goals. They don't move the ball down the field."

You're happiest as a pure tech player

Not every job role is a good fit for the management track. Someone who is happiest buried in lines of code all day who ends up a manager will inevitably be disappointed that their jobs have little to do with that which they once loved doing.

"Especially in the technology industry, you have people with the technical and analytical skill set, and they're wired for that and they are not as comfortable with the people side of development and the coaching and management," says Kip Hollister, founder and CEO of Hollister Staffing in Boston. "There's a difference between being a really good technology person and a really good manager."

Your supervisees keep quitting

One of the biggest telltale signs of a bad manager is that those that report to them are discontent, and many resign. Though this is a hard thing to measure--why people quit, who was right or wrong--it's rarely a mystery why an employee who found their supervisor difficult to work with left for greener pastures.

"When you have a bad manager, you lose personnel and you have staff that are afraid to let anyone know so they leave the organization because their managers didn't know what they were doing, they didn't know how to communicate," said Hollister. "When you put someone in a management role who doesn't belong there it is really to the detriment to the company, and to that individual.

You think it's the only road to success

Most people who make it into management never set out to get there. They simply reached a plateau in their career path and believed it was the only way up from there.

"I think there is a misconception out there that says if you don't reach management level, you're a failure," says Brad Hogenmiller, an IT recruiter at Technology Partners in St. Louis. "It's a terrible way to think but all too common. Some of the best employees I've seen and placed are ones that have no desire to be a manager. Whether it's due to self direction, business acumen, or personality; some people just shouldn't be managers and that's okay."

This is especially common in the IT realm, where the next step up from "programmer" or "DBA" isn't always clearly demarked.

"Bottom line, there are a million 'project managers' out there, but not nearly as many developers with marketable skills. Don't let the misconception fool you, there is nothing wrong with being a developer. Heck it's easier to find a good paying job that way," said Hogenmiller.