The problem is that people want the facade. I generally expect managers to present themselves as first among equals, even though I understand in extremis that's not true, and I wouldn't work in an organization where they do a bad job at pretending. It's my understanding that my mindset is pretty common, although I have to admit that I'm not sure because this isn't the kind of thing I'm comfortable polling my coworkers about.
My post is about HR processes, not management relationships. And what I said about the ultimate authority was about ownership, not management.
Managers are also just laborers. As laborers, they also need to know that "getting along with people" is most important.
> I generally expect managers to present themselves as first among equals, even though I understand in extremis that's not true, and I wouldn't work in an organization where they do a bad job at pretending.
If you're a senior engineer making anything less than 500k or so, your first-line and even second-line managers do have a complicated power relationship with you.
I.e., another way of saying what you said here is that your labor is in high enough demand that your mangers have to treat you with a certain amount of respect in day-to-day interactions.
A manager who doesn't show enough politeness/deference will have high turn-over, and in most situations that spells problems. Again, because they aren't capital owners. They are laborers.
Like I said, "getting along with people" is probably the most important skill. Finding yourself in an HR process means you failed at "getting along with people". The rest is noise. Don't rely on HR. Get along with people.
