Originally Posted by GUWonder
A key indicator of good management is that the disappearance of a single individual or few persons does not lead to collapse or (more apparent) stagnation/delay. Things run fine with me or without me. That they run well without me is a positive indicator.
The name of the game should be engineering yourself out of a job as quickly (and well) as possible.
A statistical analysis would be interesting. The posting patterns may mean different things.
The name of the game should be ensuring your people are capable and confident. I've actually told my people a number of times - "I don't actually DO anything, you folks are the ones who make it happen!" Also, ensuring they can continue of you get hit by the proverbial turnip truck, or if any of them do.
Finally, once the machine is humming along nicely, and I am thankfully not overseeing some crisis, then my duty is turn start turning over new rocks to generate either more revenue or reduce costs. It never stops.
A CEO I admire greatly managed by the concept that if you are not involved in either selling more, making more, making it better, or making/doing it cheaper than you are not value added. He cut out vast swathes of people who fit that description. Most of the time, the organization didn't miss a beat in their absence. If there was a problem, he quickly put them (or their function) back. Took a boring crappy business from -$300MM/year to +$200MM/year by doing that, and by doing what we were supposed to do better. And no, he's nobody you've heard of. Operates very successfully under the radar screen.
Just need to take a mental vacation ocassionally. We all do. FT is a nice place to do that.