Episode #2: Transitioning from IC to Manager with Raven Covington
Tags: webdev, management, career, motivation
Published: 2022-02-22 14:14:21

_An excerpt from [RenderATL](https://www.renderatl.com/)'s Culture & Code podcast Episode #2: Transitioning from IC to Manager with Raven Covington ([@_raven_io](https://twitter.com/_raven_io)):_

**Ashley:**
With management, I often think of, for example, the process of ICs switching managers and getting to know them, getting to know their management style and philosophy. Do you feel like you have your management philosophy and style figured out yet? And if so, how would you describe that?

**Raven:**
Yes, I do. I think that's actually really important. I think that you should figure that out before you become a manager, you should know why you're doing this. And specifically anyone who goes into it should realize that this is not a promotion. Yeah, I do. And it's the first thing that I like to share with people in my first one on one. Basically it's kind of corny, but I like to tell folks, "I am kind of the Scottie Pippen to your Michael Jordan." I'm the one on the sideline who you tell me which way you want to go. And I'm here to help you with guidance, advice. I'm here to be a sounding board, right? But I think I like to empower the people I work with, the people I manage, to be in the driver's seat of their career. Even maybe the time that we're working together at that particular company, right?

I still have conversations with people who I managed at Mailchimp, people who I no longer manage because I care about them as people. And I care about them for their career as a whole, right? It's like you're going to be working for a long time. So I encourage people to think about their career holistically and think about how can I help them do whatever it is that they want to do. Right? And so my manager philosophy is largely if people focus on themselves and getting what's good for them and taking care of themselves, I generally believe talented people are going to put out good work. **In my experience, I don't believe that we need to really push people to like work crazy hours or do all this wild things. If we can set up good processes, sounds like people are going to do good work.**

You just have to give them the space to do that, right? And get out of their way. So that's kind have largely been the way in which I handle my people management. For a team and if I'm managing a team, my philosophy is largely around I don't have a real... I'm not really married to any ideology of how a team should be run versus a scrum or whatever. However, we're trying to solve a problem. I don't care. As long as the problem is being solved, the tool that we use, and this is largely how I was as an IC, the tool that we use, I don't care what that tool is. Let's just solve the problem.

**And so if we focus on solving the problem and making sure that we are doing that, then I find that that gives us the best results.**

_This was an excerpt from [Culture & Code](https://www.renderatl.com/culture-and-code), a podcast brought to you by [RenderATL](https://www.renderatl.com/) that is focused on leveling up your tech career and exploring new technologies._ 

_You can listen to the full episode and read the complete transcript on our website [here](https://www.renderatl.com/culture-and-code/episode-2)._