Today’s article is a collaboration with , a VP of technology and the writer of .
We are going to share some honest stories about how we let our egos take control of our behavior, and the harm it did.
Managers have bigger egos
When you are promoted, it can feel like confirmation you are better than others. The sense of achievement and recognition can boost your ego, even before day 1 in the management job.
It doesn’t get better after the transition - being in a position of authority also inflates one’s ego.
Big ego = high sense of self-esteem or self-importance, which is not all bad. Ego can be associated with positive qualities too - confidence, ambition, assertiveness.
The problem happens when your ego controls you. When you start to think in terms of:
My idea
My project
My success
My meeting
My way of doing things
We are going to share 3 stories of when we fell into those traps.
When my ego affected the team - Anton
Taking control of meetings
I have a tendency to take control of meetings. I hate it when they go off-topic, and I often feel that I understand what other people try to say better than they do, and feel the need to ‘rephrase’ it.
This is especially harmful when the meeting is organized and led by a direct report - I’m not giving them any opportunity to practice their skills, and it just sucks when your manager keeps interrupting you.
It took me a while to understand that it’s ok if a meeting doesn’t go 100% as I would like it to. Now I try to intervene only when I feel it’s critical, but I still struggle with controlling myself.
wrote a great post about it in , on how managers need to learn to shut up (and other tips for good teamwork).
Desiring credit
Around a year ago, I led a cross-company initiative. After a while, it was clear that I was not the best person to lead it, as it involved other departments that I was less familiar with. One of the executives took charge of it, and changed the concept of the initiative.
Instead of being glad that it took hold and somebody promoted it, I was angry that someone took MY project.
When you are too focused on credit, you lose sight of the bigger goal.
Needing to be in control
I've always had trouble with delegating.
I used to think I could do everything better myself, so I did not let my team try and make mistakes. Especially if you were promoted to manage your previous team and are also the most experienced developer, it can be hard to let go of your ‘baby’ projects and let someone else take charge.
I’ve shared more of my thoughts about it in Why Team Leaders Give Up.
When my ego got the better of me -
Not being able to take mixed feedback from your team
It was 2021 and a senior engineer regularly gave me a dose of negative feedback. He contributed the most to my ability to handle it.
I’ve never received so much negative feedback before and my first reaction was to interrupt and explain why and how it was wrong. After cooling down, I came out with 2 action items:
I need to develop the skill of accepting mixed feedback without getting defensive
Every feedback has some value in it, no matter how it's delivered. What can I do about it?
At some point, you’ll get negative feedback from your team, and it’ll always be hard, but you must encourage it if you want to understand what REALLY happens.
In the case above, I took action to address the feedback, but the feedback remained. The reported issues were real, but they were also ingrained in the company culture. At that point, it was a discrepancy between the developer’s expectations and reality. I had to provide a picture of why some of the complaints could not be fully addressed at that time.
Getting emotionally attached to your ideas
I’ve been working on a big renewal with one of our vendors. That renewal included a big expansion and redesign of our existing network. There was a lot of technical scoping and projections alongside the pricing negotiations.
That was my first big project where outside of technical scope, I also participated in the pricing negotiations. I’ve been working tirelessly on understanding the current deal and the future expansion for the renewal. I put in so much time and was so attached to the deal that I blindly decided there was no better alternative than mine.
I asked my manager for the final approval and got a rejection. My proposal was bad.
But I couldn’t let it go and kept defending it. I was emotionally invested in it.
A low ego attitude prevents you from this emotional attachment because you focus on the result. Once I was suggested a different solution, I should have considered it carefully, and if it was indeed better than mine - I should have pivoted easily.
Being less flexible
If you have an inflated ego you simply can’t “disagree and commit”. Amazon had to make it one of its core values to ensure people’s egos were in control.
A few years ago I worked on an infrastructure project. I had to deliver a platform that would run multiple workloads at the same time without sacrificing performance. There was a correct and future-proof path that everyone had been working on, but it would have taken a few months to build that capability.
I only had a few weeks to deliver. My manager told me to build a workaround to meet the delivery dates, and I didn’t agree. We had a long screaming match, and in the end I agreed to it.
Looking back, the only reason for that screaming match was my ego. I didn’t want to do it that way. I wanted there to be only one solution - my solution.
What does low ego leadership look like?
With your team:
Listen - don’t interrupt.
Be humble - you don’t know everything. Admit your mistakes, and let your team make decisions.
Embrace the negative feedback and learn from it.
Empower your team through delegation - it’s ok if mistakes happen, and if they make different decisions than you would have.
With your manager
Get in their shoes - try to understand what they are going through, what they care about, and how you can help them.
Disagree and commit - even if you are 100% sure you are right, you might not see the whole picture. Trust your manager.
The success of the project/company comes before your personal fame and credit. Be willing to let go of ‘it’s MY idea!’.
I’ll take a risk and be a bit spiritual here - I highly recommend reading A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, it has some interesting thoughts on the concept of ego. It talks about how we learn from childhood to identify and attach ourselves to external things, like toys. A child cries when a toy is broken because “MY toy is broken”, the toy is part of them. Then we attach ourselves to possessions and ideas - we are defined by our work, by our status, by our relationships.
Back to the old earth - just some food for thought for those interested. The first step in the right direction is to admit there is a problem :)
What I enjoyed reading this week:
How to manage on-calls in . I think this one is a MUST for engineering managers!
