GroovyUnicorn
GroovyUnicorn

Toxic Leadership in Engineering and Product

Somehow in india all the product startup’s have adopted the most toxic and worst translation of what it’s being like as a product manager and engineering management. Both these roles have become nothing but fear mongering, power grab, and most being extremely bias towards almost everything.

So your success is very much dependent on how your manager is and the opportunity that they provide. So if you want to avoid toxicity sooner, it’s the right step rather than stick and fail in the long term. Once again, I am talking based off of my 10 yoe. You may have a different experience and I’d definitely wanna learn more.

23mo ago
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GroovyJellybean
GroovyJellybean

Engineering management is pure dumb in India for US product companies. Non contributing managers and directors who won't even pass design interviews. These are parasites who'll latch on new host, one of the reasons keeping India down and also talent leaving

WigglyMuffin
WigglyMuffin

Beautifully put

GoofyBurrito
GoofyBurrito
PayTM23mo

This current breed of IIT IIM founders who only know how to crack exams and interviews and have been given affirmation their whole life and then weasel their way into leadership positions after being fed money by the current breed of IIT IIM VC analysts - is the problem at heart. Also all men who can’t even wash their own dishes. How do expect someone like that to train and guide and deliver value to society?

TwirlyWaffle
TwirlyWaffle

This.

TwirlyPenguin
TwirlyPenguin

This rant tells me that you’re envious, nothing else. As much as you’d like to believe it, ik it’ll be tough to entertain another opinion- IIT IIM VC <> Founder nexus exists only as a subset of the industry and even then good luck trying to get anything out without impressing them w everything you’ve got and done till now.

No ones handing out freebies. “Also all men ..” is particularly salty. The f do you know about lives of “all men”. If you’re a woman in tech w no college brands I’d suggest to not make the “System” your scapegoat and let complacency set in.

DerpyPotato
DerpyPotato

Definitely agree Getting more work done is a good sign, and being toxic with your reportees can seem like a great thing to do

It works only when the startup is in a super fast growth phase though, and people have incentives to put up with toxicity.

The moment shit hits the fans, these leaders will be the first to go down. Not a long & correct way to be a REAL leader.

ZippyTaco
ZippyTaco

Imo it’s a cultural issue. Only way to mitigate this would be to have a strong 360 degree feedback program.

Also it’s very important to do deep referral check especially when you’re hiring for any managerial level role.

Do the hardworking. Don’t outsource this work to shitty agencies.

ZippyTaco
ZippyTaco

*hardwork

GroovyUnicorn
GroovyUnicorn

No amount of referral or review can help in this one, because the true colour only works when you work with people 1:1 in day to day. Initial 20-30 days would be fine, then we see the true authentic self which can be mostly geared towards toxicity. On the contrary, I wonder if any one feels they have a good manager that can help skew our feedback towards hey let’s all find places where there is good management.

JumpyPancake
JumpyPancake
Zepto23mo

There is a simple logic that leaders when asked by their managers/founders believe in: If it takes one woman 9 months to deliver a baby, 9 woman can do the same in one month.

Everything is a P0. It's hard to make them understand that if everything is urgent then nothing is.

DerpyQuokka
DerpyQuokka

True. Say the business is underperforming. What a lot of product leaders will do is to try to push for insane targets with poor priorities and dump a lot of “Find out how to solve this problem “ and when the team fails, you can just say “The team is not able to step up” allowing you to successfully shift the blame.

BubblyPickle
BubblyPickle
Juspay23mo

Sorry to hurt you but you haven't had a chance to work in good places in your ten years

GroovyUnicorn
GroovyUnicorn

Unfortunately this happened only towards the far end of my career atm since the past 3-4 years before this I was working in the Us where I had no issues because the culture entirely was different from the ground up.

BubblyPickle
BubblyPickle
Juspay23mo

In recession all cultures have gone to shit

WobblyPancake
WobblyPancake
Dukaan23mo

What exactly is the definition of toxic ? I'm fresher just joined a early stage startup, 2 weeks back

JazzyNarwhal
JazzyNarwhal

You'll get to know in a month 😀

WobblyPancake
WobblyPancake
Dukaan23mo

Jokes aside pls explain 🙏

BouncyDonut
BouncyDonut
Swiggy23mo

Expecting good leadership culture at Unacademy seems ironic no?

GroovyUnicorn
GroovyUnicorn

Not there anymore. Anything to add ?

SnoozyBanana
SnoozyBanana

Agree all was well since last year. We were family, was getting leave to rejuvenate. Abhi jazbat badal diya, haalat badal liya

CosmicDonut
CosmicDonut

I don’t think good product mgmt exists in india

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Top comments
user

fck this culture. this is a definition of a toxic startup, which most Indian startups are

user

a complete toxic culture is what i can feel, a manager should be the one uplifting the team not insulting an individu...

user

seems like a fast pace env and maybe you are not skilled enough to survive there, find what's best for you