”Understand that a great manager is essentially an organizational engineer. Great managers are not philosophers, entertainers, doers, or artists. They are engineers." - Ray Dalio, 'Principles'
Supposedly, there are software developers that are 10x better than others. I don’t know if 10x developers really exist but I can affirm that 10x managers do.
Andy Grove, the legendary Intel CEO, defines the manager output as:
The output of a manager is the output of the organizational units under his or her supervision or influence.
The manager is a multiplier on the team's results. Your company works as a machine composed of processes and people. The better the manager, the better the machine will work.
In my career I have encountered three roles a manager must fulfil:
The Operator:
They work to make the machine deliver the most. They know what levers to pull and what buttons to push. They motivate the team, coach them and know all processes necessary for success. However, they only work inside the system. If the processes are not working anymore, or the situation changes for some reason they will be in trouble.
The Technician:
They know how to operate the machine well but more important than that they know how to fix problems in the design. If the training process is not working, they will diagnose the problem and fix it and when conditions in the market change they will change the processes and incentives as well.
The Engineer:
The rarest manager of them all. The engineer designs organizational systems. They are the ones who know how to create metrics, training, incentives, and processes to achieve maximum performance.
Conclusion
The 10x managers I met were able to do the 3 roles well. If you want to become a 10x manager look at the one where you fare the worst and start to improve now.