---
type: "article"
title: "The impossible task of engineering managers"
newsletter: "manager.dev"
newsletter_handle: "managerdev"
newsletter_url: "https://usecommune.com/n/managerdev"
author: "Anton Zaides (@antonz23)"
published: "2024-08-13T06:01:59.000Z"
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source_url: "https://newsletter.manager.dev/p/the-impossible-task-of-engineering"
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---

# The impossible task of engineering managers

You need to achieve an impossible balance, in **every single one of your behaviors**:

- You need to be humble, but not passive.
- You need to talk enough that your team knows where you stand, but not too much otherwise they’ll stop paying attention.
- You need to rely on metrics to make decisions, but also pay attention to the hearts and minds of employees and customers.

And the list goes on.

### **Why it matters**

If you are blind to that balancing act, you’ll lean too far in one direction. Sometimes, your biggest advantages can bring you down:

- **Are you a great coder?**Then you are probably too involved in the technical details, having a hard time delegating decisions to your developers.
- **Are you good at taking ownership and covering for your people?**Your team members probably have nothing left for which they can take ownership… They execute only at your specific direction, which results in a far less capable team.
- **Are you close to your people?**Then you probably avoid some difficult conversations, and will find it very hard to lay off people when the time comes.

### **My balancing act**

**Demanding AND caring.**Those are the 2 words I would use to describe which kind of manager I want to be.

I care about my people, I really do. I want each of them to receive big raises every year, get promote and generally succeed. In addition, I have a personal connection with every single one of them. We talk about our personal lives, our struggles, our goals in life.

But I also want to set a high bar, and deliver exceptional results. When it’s time to have tough conversations, I always ‘soften up’ my delivery. When things get tough and extra work is needed, I hope they volunteer, or do it myself.

I’m getting better at it, but it’s a constant (and important!) struggle.

In ***The Dichotomy of Leadership*****,**the authors covered it very well:

> If leaders develop overly close relationships with their people, they may not be willing to make those people do what is necessary to complete a project or a task.
>
> They may not have the guts to lay off individuals with whom they have relationships, even if it is the right move for the good of the company.
>
> And some leaders get so close to their people that they don’t want to have hard conversations with them—they don’t want to tell them that they need to improve.
>
> On the other hand, if a leader is too detached from the team, he or she may overwork, overexpose, or otherwise harm its members while achieving no significant value from that sacrifice.
>
> The leader may be too quick to fire people to save a buck, thereby developing the reputation of not caring about the team beyond its ability to support the strategic goals. So leaders must find the balance.
>
> **They must push hard without pushing too hard. They must drive their team to accomplish the mission without driving them off a cliff.**

### Final words

The list of dichotomies is endless - each leader has their own balancing challenge to deal with.

What’s yours?

Hit reply, and promise to provide my thoughts on it.

### What I enjoyed reading this week

1. [Understand The 4 Shapes of Software Developers to Better Navigate Your Career](https://thetshaped.dev/p/the-4-shapes-of-software-developers?utm_source=newsletter.manager.dev&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-impossible-task-of-engineering-managers) by
2. [So You Want To Become an Engineering Manager](https://emdiary.substack.com/p/so-you-want-to-become-an-em?utm_source=newsletter.manager.dev&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-impossible-task-of-engineering-managers) by with his first post, good luck Suresh!
3. [A/B testing mistakes I learned the hard way](https://newsletter.posthog.com/p/ab-testing-mistakes-i-learned-the?utm_source=newsletter.manager.dev&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=the-impossible-task-of-engineering-managers) by - another new author I encountered this week, with a great article!

***

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