One of the biggest mistakes companies make is incentivizing everyone to become a manager because it offers better compensation – do not make this mistake!
Instead, create two paths – the individual contributor (IC) path and the leadership path, with the same compensation and ESOP.
Your best developer might not necessarily have the potential to become your best manager. Instead, it’s important to think about people’s spikes – that one or two things they are extremely good at – and fostering those to help them become even better. This means thinking about this when evaluating people and providing them with feedback; the goal is not to help everyone score a five out of a five in all areas, but instead score five out of five in a particular area.