Skip to content

Leadership

Leadership is not a promotion. It is a practice.

You do not become a leader when you get a title. You become a leader when people around you do better work because of how you show up—how you set context, how you make decisions visible, how you create space for others to take ownership and grow.

This section is about developing that practice, both in yourself and in others. It covers the inner work of self-awareness and resilience, the craft of growing people into leaders, and the organizational work of building leadership depth so you are not a bottleneck.

Why Leadership Development Matters

Engineering leadership has a compounding effect. A strong tech lead creates an environment where engineers grow faster. A capable engineering manager builds a team that can deliver without constant intervention. An organization with leadership depth can absorb change, scale, and recover from setbacks.

The inverse is also true. When leadership is underdeveloped, everything is harder. Decisions bottleneck at the top. Knowledge concentrates in a few people. Teams wait for direction instead of taking initiative. Growth stalls because there is no one to grow into senior roles.

The goal is not to create leaders who look like you. It is to create conditions where different kinds of leadership can emerge—leadership suited to the problems, contexts, and people involved.

What This Section Covers

Topic Core Idea Deep-Dive
Self-Development Leadership starts with self-awareness, energy management, and continuous learning Leadership Development
Growing Others How to identify, stretch, and support emerging leaders Leadership Development
Building Depth Succession planning, delegation, and avoiding single points of failure Leadership Development
Leadership Transitions Supporting people as they move from IC to lead, lead to manager, and beyond Leadership Development

The Leadership Ladder

Leadership exists at every level of seniority. The scope and focus shift, but the core skills—setting context, enabling others, making decisions under uncertainty—apply throughout.

Level Leadership Focus Typical Scope
Senior Engineer Technical leadership within a team; influencing without authority A feature, a component, a codebase area
Tech Lead Team delivery and technical direction; coaching engineers One team, one product area
Engineering Manager People leadership, process, and team health One to two teams, 5-10 people
Senior EM / Director Multi-team coordination, organizational design, cross-functional influence Multiple teams, a domain or pillar
VP / Head of Engineering Organizational strategy, executive partnership, engineering culture An entire engineering organization

Each transition involves a significant shift in what "good" looks like. What made you successful at one level is often insufficient—or even counterproductive—at the next. The sections that follow address these transitions explicitly.

Principles for Leadership Development

These principles guide how we approach growing leaders:

Leadership is learned, not innate. Nobody is born knowing how to run a good 1:1 or navigate a difficult performance conversation. These are skills that can be taught, practiced, and improved.

Development happens through doing. Workshops and books provide frameworks, but real growth comes from stretch assignments, real decisions, and supported failure. Create opportunities for emerging leaders to lead.

Feedback accelerates growth. Leaders need mirrors—people who will tell them honestly how they are showing up. Without feedback, blind spots persist and bad habits calcify.

Context matters. Effective leadership looks different in different settings. A crisis demands different behavior than a growth phase. Remote teams need different rituals than co-located ones. Teach principles, but help people adapt to context.

Leadership is a service. The point is not to be impressive. The point is to enable others to do their best work. Leaders who focus on looking good instead of making others successful are a liability.

What Good Looks Like

You know leadership development is working when:

Signal What You Observe
Emerging leaders are visible You can name 2-3 people in each team who could step into larger roles
Transitions succeed New tech leads and managers ramp up without crashing
Decisions are distributed You are not a bottleneck; teams make good decisions without you
Leaders grow leaders Your senior people are actively developing others, not just delivering
Resilience to change When someone leaves, the team adapts without crisis
Diverse leadership Leadership roles reflect the diversity of your organization, not just the majority

What Usually Goes Wrong

Anti-pattern What It Looks Like Mitigation
The Hero Leader One person makes all decisions, knows all context, cannot take vacation Distribute ownership; document decisions; practice delegation
Promotion Without Preparation ICs become managers overnight with no support Provide coaching, peer support, and a ramp-up plan for every transition
Sink or Swim New leads are thrown into the role and left alone Pair them with mentors; check in frequently; expect learning curves
Leadership Cloning Everyone is developed to lead the same way Value different styles; focus on outcomes, not conformity
Feedback Avoidance No one tells leaders how they are doing; problems fester Normalize upward feedback; create safe channels for input
Ignoring Self-Care Leaders burn out trying to support everyone else Model sustainable pace; address energy management explicitly

How to Use This Section

If you are developing yourself as a leader, start with Leadership Development. It covers the practices and habits that help you grow—from self-awareness to learning from failure.

If you are developing others, the same page includes frameworks for identifying emerging leaders, structuring stretch assignments, and supporting transitions.

If you are building organizational leadership depth, see Succession Planning and Coaching New Tech Leads for operational processes.