How do you strategize personal growth as an engineering manager?

Question

I would like to hear how EMs consider personal growth is and how they plan towards that. I see myself ready to take on a larger team and manage managers myself. Of course, that itself is not enough, I need my manager to also feel that way. Generally speaking, there are two strategies, grow the team organically and then promote within or ask and have sister teams re-org and report to me. I am looking to primarily discuss the second option. I see a new manager created and they are hiring for themselves. I feel that that team really belongs under me as there is a large overlap with my team's functionality. Did anyone go about doing that? In general though, I would like to hear how EMs consider personal growth is and how they plan towards that.

shoo · Accepted Answer

one anecdote i have heard is that many people's careers have benefited tremendously from the opportunity to act in their boss' role for a few months when their boss has fallen sick.
this clearly isn't a strategy you can actively pursue, but a potential opportunity to be aware of and react to.
it's also somewhat entertaining to reflect that many people who have ascended some rungs up the org chart may have partly done so because their boss happened to get sick once.