So lately Iāve been consuming leadership literature the way a Labradour consumesā¦ wellā¦ anything. I used to read these kinds of books as an IC but for fun, and I could never compare them to my own experiences because I didnāt have any. Now theyāre really starting to hit home, and the two booksā that have stuck out to me recently have been:
And itās the first one I want to reflect on today, weāll get to the other one next time.
Dan (can I call you Dan?) mentions the three ingredients of motivation are:
- Autonomy - the desire to direct our own lives
- Mastery - the urge to get better and better at something that matters
- Purpose - the yearning to do what we do in the service of something larger than ourselves.
An engineering manager has a lot of influence in creating an environment where these three things are maximised for their team and reports, and itās been the first one that I feel like Iāve been tripping up on.
Autonomy to me, in a software team is, given a goal I get to decide how to get there. This means less hands on guidance from the EM (less micro-management if you will). The EM can provide the context and ultimate goal (āThe business wants us to release x in November because yā), but how to get there is the ICs responsibility. Even if as an EM I am āaccountableā for it.
EMs should have input of course (and you bet your ass I do) but to dictate is demotivating.
Yes, Iām learning the difference between responsibility and accountability. Itās fun.
Transitioning from an IC, this is hard because Iām so full of ā ļø TECHNICAL OPINIONS ā ļø honed over many years of projects,
poor decisions, good decisions, study and experimentation.
To let go, stand back and ājustā guide feels like Iām not doing my job.
But Iām starting to realise my job now is to support others doing their job. So, even though my glorious serverless lambda* driven event sourcing architecture may never see the light of day, Iām happy to trust the team to come up with a much better solution and feel ownership and direction over the work, since the result is always better.
ā Milly
ā Both recommendations by the amazing Hannah Browne
*Just kidding. I would never use lambdas.