What Makes a Great Design Manager?

Stolen from:
http://www.uxmatters.com/MT/archives/000281.php, "So You Want to Be a UX Manager—Seriously?" which is worth reading in its entirety.

Successful managers are:

• accountable—Take
  responsibility for results and hold themselves, peers, and direct reports
  accountable for achieving established goals and objectives.
  
• customer focused—Clearly
  communicate what a team can do to achieve stakeholder or customer
  expectations, without over promising, and understand the cost/benefit
  ramifications of their recommendations to stakeholders and customers.
  
• results driven—Willingly
  establish and apply performance measurements, set high performance standards
  for themselves and direct reports as necessary to achieve customer
  expectations, and implement significant consequences—positive and negative—for
  achieving or not meeting performance expectations.
  
• open and effective
  communicators—Create an atmosphere in which
  high-quality information flows smoothly through an organization and to
  stakeholders, in a timely manner, and encourage the open expression of ideas
  and opinions. Creating such an atmosphere means you must wait for another
  person to finish his or her intended message before responding, disseminate
  more than the minimal amount of information people need, and respond
  positively when stakeholders or direct reports voice negative issues.
  
• effective managers of
  talent—Hire individual contributors who are as smart
  as or smarter than they are; surround themselves with the greatest talent;
  strive to bring out the best in others, regardless of their current
  performance levels; delegate authority and responsibility to others, allowing
  them to use their abilities and talents effectively; give feedback, coach, and
  appraise employees at every opportunity possible—every week, if not every day;
  not just at review time; and respects and tolerates differing opinions.
  
• team builders—Promote and
  generate cooperation and teamwork while working to achieve collective
  outcomes, give credit for success and recognition to the team rather than
  seeking credit for themselves, and encourage individuals to contribute to the
  organizational strategy. As Jack Welch says, they “get every mind in the
  game.”
  

These competencies embody a few key points. There is an
overwhelming amount of research and expert opinion showing that, in
addition to the six competencies I’ve listed above, great managers and leaders
are

• respectful—Treat individuals on their teams
  as professionals and address them with appropriate respect. They are not out
  to make themselves look good, but to help their employees execute their
  responsibilities well, and—yes—to build employee confidence.
  
• natural mentors—Are great coaches and find
  deep joy in helping their employees grow their careers and execute at a very
  high level.
  
• emotionally intelligent—Are direct, yet
  compassionate and tactful.
  
• able to see the big picture—Look out not
  only for their teams, but for the larger organization and company.
  
• decisive—Make hard choices quickly and
  recognize they may need to make frequent course-corrections.
  
• life-long learners—Seek feedback regularly
  from peers, direct reports, and their managers and have a passion for
  improving themselves.