The Cause Of Mediocre Managers
I’ve always been passionate about the importance of high quality people managers. Unfortunately, throughout my career I frequently experienced mediocre […]
I’ve always been passionate about the importance of high quality people managers. Unfortunately, throughout my career I frequently experienced mediocre […]
Use this guide to identify the leadership gaps driving escalations, missed deadlines, attrition, and chronic firefighting – and to install practical systems that restore strategic bandwidth.
Inside you’ll get:
How to Use This Guide
This document is designed to be both a diagnostic and an action plan. Most CTOs do not have a single “problem” – they have a small number of leadership gaps that create second-order effects across delivery, quality, and morale.
Recommended workflow:
Tip: Avoid trying to fix all 11 at once. Pick the smallest set of changes that meaningfully reduces escalations and improves predictability.
Rapid Scorecard
Score each gap from 0 to 3 based on how true it is for your organization today:
0 = Not true / rare 1 = Sometimes true 2 = Often true 3 = Consistently true / painful
| Leadership gap | Score (0-3) | Notes / examples |
| #1 – Measured on Team Outcomes (Not Personal Output) | ||
| #2 – Avoiding Poor Performance Conversations | ||
| #3 – Retreating Back Into Code | ||
| #4 – Weak Hiring Discipline | ||
| #5 – Not Expanding Scope With Seniority | ||
| #6 – Reactive Leadership (Firefighting Culture) | ||
| #7 – Solving Easy Problems vs Right Problems | ||
| #8 – Failure to Prioritize and Triage | ||
| #9 – Saying Yes to Everything | ||
| #10 – Over-Directing High Performers | ||
| #11 – Neglecting Engineer Motivation and Energy |
Interpretation:
Gap #1: Measured on Team Outcomes (Not Personal Output)
Shift from maker to multiplier.
Promoted managers hear, “Congrats, you’ve done a great job!” The catch? You did a great job as an engineer, not a manager. Leadership means shifting from personal delivery to your team’s ability to deliver, control to influence, binary solutions to navigating ambiguity. Many engineering leaders feel discomfort shifting their identity from Technical Expert to Strategic Leader
| What it looks like | The leader is the default fixer for critical work and decisions. Success is described in individual hero terms (“I shipped”, “I refactored”) rather than team outcomes. Work is busy but delivery predictability does not improve quarter over quarter. |
| Common root causes | Identity is anchored in technical excellence; leadership feels vague and risky. No explicit definition of what “great management” means in this org (outcomes, behaviors, metrics). Over-reliance on the leader for context, decisions, and cross-team alignment. |
| Organizational cost | Throughput caps at the leader’s bandwidth; the team does not compound. High escalation load and decision latency. Weak bench: managers do not learn to own outcomes. |
| Diagnostic questions | What percent of key decisions required your approval last week? If you were out for two weeks, what would stall first: decisions, execution, or stakeholder alignment? Do weekly updates report team outcomes (delivery, quality, reliability) or activities? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Write a 1 page success definition for your role: 3 outcomes, 3 behaviors, 3 metrics. Start a weekly “Outcomes Review”: commitments made vs delivered, with causes and countermeasures. Delegate one recurring decision this week (with guardrails) and publicly support the new owner. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Install an operating cadence: weekly priorities + risks, monthly roadmap trade-offs, quarterly capability goals. Create a decision-rights matrix for your leadership layer (who decides what, when to escalate). Adopt a simple metrics set: delivery (cycle time), reliability (incidents), people (attrition risk), quality (defects). |
| Metrics to track | CTO approvals/week Escalations/week (and percent resolved without CTO) Commitment reliability (planned vs done) Cycle time trend |
| Example scenario | A CTO stopped joining every architecture debate and instead required a 1-page decision brief (options, trade-offs, recommendation). Within a month, the team made faster decisions and escalations dropped because leaders learned how to frame decisions, not just ask for answers. |
Gap #2: Avoiding Poor Performance Conversations
Performance management is a system, not an event.
Under-performers drag down productivity and morale. Toxic employees do even more damage. When poor performance become an issue, many engineering managers change policy for the whole team in an effort to address the issue on a macro level to avoid a difficult conversation. Addressing performance issues isn’t optional, it’s a core leadership responsibility. If coaching doesn’t work, decisive action is needed to protect the team.
| What it looks like | Low performers linger for months while high performers carry the load. Leaders change process for everyone to avoid addressing one person. Toxic behavior is tolerated because “they’re productive” or “hard to replace”. |
| Common root causes | Lack of clarity on role expectations and what “good” looks like. Managers fear conflict, HR process, or being viewed as “not supportive”. No early-warning cadence (feedback, 1:1 quality, calibration). |
| Organizational cost | High performers disengage or leave (your best people notice). Velocity and quality degrade due to rework and hidden dependencies. Culture learns that standards are optional. |
| Diagnostic questions | Do you have written expectations for each role level (IC, TL, EM, Director)? How quickly do you deliver direct feedback after an issue occurs (days, weeks, months)? Can your managers explain the difference between coaching and a performance plan? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Define role expectations for the role in question (3-5 behaviors and outcomes). Deliver one piece of clear, direct feedback using SBI: Situation-Behavior-Impact. Set a 2-week improvement checkpoint with explicit success criteria. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Implement a monthly talent calibration: who is exceeding, meeting, at-risk; agreed actions. Create a standard performance playbook: coaching plan, documentation, escalation path. Train managers on difficult conversations and role clarity; review their 1:1 notes. |
| Metrics to track | Time-to-feedback (median days) Percent of team with current growth plans Attrition of top performers Repeat incidents of the same behavior |
| Example scenario | A director avoided confronting a toxic senior engineer and instead introduced heavy process for everyone. After clarifying expectations and addressing the individual directly, the team removed unnecessary friction and regained trust in leadership standards. |
Gap #3: Retreating Back Into Code
You can’t scale a team you keep rescuing.
When things go wrong, many leaders default to what they know: jumping into code reviews or architecture. But the real fix often lies in coaching, communication, or more fundamental change. Your job is no longer to write code, it is to build a team that gets stronger over time.
| What it looks like | Leaders jump into PRs, incident fixes, or architecture because it feels faster. Managers become “super ICs” with direct ownership of critical paths. The team waits for the leader’s technical opinion before moving forward. |
| Common root causes | Underdeveloped leadership bench (weak decision ownership). No clear escalation ladder; everything feels “important enough” to intervene. Leaders get dopamine from technical problem-solving under stress. |
| Organizational cost | Managers don’t develop; autonomy and accountability stay low. Bus factor increases around the leader; delivery becomes fragile. Strategic work (roadmap, org design, architecture bets) is starved. |
| Diagnostic questions | In the last two weeks, how many times did you personally unblock by writing code? What work only you can do is not getting done? Do your leads have explicit decision rights for their domains? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Pick one technical area to step back from; assign an owner and announce it. Replace “I’ll fix it” with “Bring me options and your recommendation”. Set a rule: your code contributions must be teaching moments (pairing, review), not rescue. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Create domain ownership: clear accountable owners for services/platform areas. Build an incident operating model: on-call rotation health, postmortems, and action tracking. Institute decision docs for architecture changes; require owner recommendation. |
| Metrics to track | Leader code commits/week (should trend down) Time-to-decision for architecture changes On-call load per person and after-hours pages Number of repeat incidents |
| Example scenario | A CTO stopped approving every design and instead ran a weekly 30-minute architecture review where owners presented trade-offs. Quality improved because decisions were documented and ownership became explicit. |
`Gap #4: Weak Hiring Discipline
Hiring is your culture and capability engine.
“A players hire A players. B players hire C players.” Hiring isn’t just about filling a seat, it’s the beginning of a long-term partnership. Leaders who delegate hiring to HR or treat it as a checklist item miss the opportunity to shape team culture and performance. Leaders need to vet candidates for problem-solving ability, work ethic, and cultural fit, not just technical chops.
| What it looks like | Hiring is rushed to fill seats; bar drifts downward under pressure. Interviews test current skills more than fit, problem-solving and collaboration. No consistent rubric; decisions are based on “gut feel”. |
| Common root causes | No shared definition of what “great” looks like for each role level. Interviewers aren’t trained; signals and calibration are inconsistent. Leaders delegate hiring ownership to HR instead of owning the talent bar. |
| Organizational cost | Mismatched hires create rework, conflict, and increased management load. Time-to-productivity increases; teams slow down to accommodate. Culture erodes as standards become ambiguous. |
| Diagnostic questions | Do you have a written scorecard for each role (skills, behaviors, outcomes)? Can two interviewers score the same candidate similarly using your rubric? What percent of hires you made in the last year would you re-hire today? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Define a role scorecard for your next hire (must-have, nice-to-have, red flags). Add one structured interview focused on problem-solving and trade-offs. Run a 30-minute interviewer calibration using a past candidate as a case. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Implement a consistent rubric and debrief protocol (evidence-based, not vibes). Use work-sample exercises aligned to your real work (scoped and fair). Track quality-of-hire via 30/60/90 outcomes and manager confidence. |
| Metrics to track | Time-to-fill and time-to-productivity Offer acceptance rate 90-day pass rate / regretted attrition Hiring manager satisfaction |
| Example scenario | A team replaced trivia interviews with a structured design exercise and a rubric. They reduced mismatches and improved onboarding success because expectations were explicit from day one. |
Gap #5: Not Expanding Scope With Seniority
Every level requires a wider lens.
Each promotion requires a broader, more strategic view, but it’s easy to get pulled back into your previous role by habit or others’ expectations. If you don’t intentionally redefine your scope, you risk juggling both your old and new responsibilities—and doing neither effectively. Senior leadership isn’t about doing more; it’s about making fewer, higher-impact decisions that shape the future of the organization.
| What it looks like | New leaders keep owning their old responsibilities plus the new ones. Strategic work is postponed because urgent delivery dominates. Leadership is measured by personal busyness rather than organizational leverage. |
| Common root causes | Role definition is fuzzy; expectations were not reset after promotion. Leaders are rewarded for heroics and responsiveness. No delegation plan to offload previous scope. |
| Organizational cost | Burnout and chronic context switching. Strategic risks go unmanaged (architecture, hiring, capability building). The org becomes dependent on a few overextended people. |
| Diagnostic questions | After the last promotion, what did you explicitly stop doing? What three decisions at your level have the highest leverage this quarter? Do your directs know what you own vs what they own? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Write a “stop-doing” list of 5 items and communicate it to your team. Identify one successor for your prior scope and transfer ownership with a handoff plan. Block two strategy sessions on your calendar and publish the outputs. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Create role charters for leaders (purpose, outcomes, decision rights). Adopt a quarterly “capability roadmap” (bench strength, reliability, platform health). Review spans and layers to match stage (avoid too many direct reports to the CTO). |
| Metrics to track | Hours/week in strategic work Number of direct reports (span of control) Escalations bypassing intended owners Quarterly capability milestones achieved |
| Example scenario | A CTO reduced direct reports from 11 to 6 and added two director roles. Their time shifted from coordination to strategy and the organization became faster because decisions moved closer to the work. |
Gap #6: Reactive Leadership (Firefighting Culture)
If you don’t design the system, the system designs you.
“We’re too busy to be proactive.” Sound familiar? Many leaders hope that more headcount will solve the chaos, but it rarely does. The real value lies in proactive leadership: prioritizing, mitigating risk, and improving execution before problems explode.
| What it looks like | Roadmap changes weekly; priorities are driven by the loudest stakeholder. Incidents repeat; postmortems exist but actions don’t stick. Leaders spend their week responding instead of preventing. |
| Common root causes | No operating cadence (weekly priorities, risk review, trade-off forums). Low clarity on ownership and escalation criteria. Metrics are lagging indicators only; no leading indicators of risk. |
| Organizational cost | Reliability and morale decline; on-call becomes punitive. Strategic initiatives stall; delivery predictability remains low. Stakeholders lose confidence and add more control, which worsens reactivity. |
| Diagnostic questions | Do you have a weekly risk review with owners and countermeasures? How many recurring incidents occurred this quarter? Is there a single source of truth for priorities and commitments? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Start a weekly 30-minute risk review: top risks, owners, next actions. Set an escalation ladder and an interrupt budget for leadership. Choose one recurring incident class and eliminate the root cause. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Create a stable prioritization process: intake, scoring, displacement rule. Adopt error budgets and operational KPIs; tie them to roadmap capacity. Implement action tracking for postmortems with deadlines and owners. |
| Metrics to track | Escalations/week Repeat incidents/month Roadmap churn (replans/month) On-call after-hours pages |
| Example scenario | A CTO instituted a weekly risk review and required a displacement decision for new requests. The team regained predictability because urgency had to compete with commitments. |
Gap #7: Solving Easy Problems vs Right Problems
Busyness is not impact.
It’s tempting to tackle problems you know how to solve, even if they’re not the most important. As Peter Thiel says, focus on A+ problems: the ones that move the needle. Human nature draws us to B+ problems that feel satisfying to solve but don’t drive impact. Great leaders resist the pull to B+ problems and tackle A+ problems.
| What it looks like | Teams optimize local improvements while core outcomes stagnate. Leaders chase visible wins (tools, refactors) while customer pain persists. Important cross-functional issues are avoided because they’re messy. |
| Common root causes | No clear definition of the highest-leverage problems (A+ problems). Fear of conflict and complexity; avoidance of ambiguous work. Incentives favor activity metrics over outcomes. |
| Organizational cost | Opportunity cost: high-impact work is delayed by low-leverage initiatives. Stakeholder frustration increases; trust erodes. Engineering becomes a service function rather than a strategic partner. |
| Diagnostic questions | What are your top 3 company outcomes this quarter, and how does engineering map to them? How often do you say no to “good ideas”? Do you measure outcomes (customer impact, reliability, revenue enablement) or activities? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | List the top 5 problems harming outcomes; rank by impact and urgency. Cancel or pause one low-leverage initiative and explain the trade-off publicly. Require every project proposal to include an outcome metric and kill criteria. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Implement quarterly outcome-based planning with clear success metrics. Create a lightweight portfolio review: initiatives, ROI, risk, capacity. Train leaders to surface and resolve cross-functional constraints. |
| Metrics to track | Percent of work tied to explicit outcomes Projects paused/cancelled (healthy number) Stakeholder satisfaction pulse Outcome KPI movement (north-star metrics) |
| Example scenario | A team stopped chasing tooling upgrades and instead focused on the checkout latency that was impacting conversion. They shipped fewer projects but moved the business metric that mattered. |
Gap #8: Failure to Prioritize and Triage
Prioritization is a leadership service.
You start the day with three key goals. By evening, you’ve been “productive”, but none of those goals are done. This happens at the team level too. Without clear prioritization and triage, engineers drown in a flood of “urgent” tasks. Leaders must act as an abstraction layer between their team and the chaos.
| What it looks like | Engineers are context-switching across too many “urgent” items. Backlogs are massive; everything is labeled P1. Managers can’t explain why the team is doing what it’s doing. |
| Common root causes | No explicit priority stack (Now, Next, Not Doing). Weak intake and triage; stakeholders bypass product/engineering planning. WIP limits are absent; work starts faster than it finishes. |
| Organizational cost | Cycle time increases; delivery becomes unpredictable. Quality drops due to rushed work and incomplete testing. Team morale declines because nothing feels finished. |
| Diagnostic questions | Can every engineer state the top 3 priorities and why they matter? How many items are in progress per engineer/team? How often are priorities changed mid-sprint without displacement? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Publish a 3-level priority stack: Now, Next, Not Doing. Set a simple WIP limit and enforce finishing before starting. Install a weekly triage meeting with product and key stakeholders. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Create an intake rubric and displacement rule for new work. Adopt a predictable planning cadence; stabilize commitments. Track flow metrics and use them to guide capacity decisions. |
| Metrics to track | Work in progress (WIP) Cycle time and throughput Priority changes/week Escalations caused by unclear priority |
| Example scenario | A CTO introduced a “Not Doing” list and WIP limits. Within weeks, teams finished more work with less stress because priorities stopped thrashing. |
Gap #9: Saying Yes to Everything
A CTO’s job includes disappointing people.
Trying to do everything is the fastest path to mediocrity. Ruthless prioritization is essential. Once your goals are clear, relentlessly triage every new request: if it doesn’t align, delegate it, delay it, or say no. Protect your team’s time and energy for what matters most.
| What it looks like | Commitments pile up; deadlines slip; trust declines. The team is perpetually “behind” and forced into hero mode. Stakeholders learn that pressure works and escalate more. |
| Common root causes | Lack of explicit trade-off language and decision forums. Fear of conflict or political repercussions. No capacity model; commitments are not grounded in throughput. |
| Organizational cost | Burnout, quality problems, and delivery inconsistency. Roadmap becomes a wish list, not a plan. Stakeholder relationships degrade due to broken promises. |
| Diagnostic questions | When a new request arrives, do you require something else to be deprioritized? Do you have a single owner for each initiative and a clear success metric? How often do you renegotiate scope vs accept new scope? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Adopt the displacement question: “What should we stop doing to start this?” Use a script: “Yes, if…” with explicit trade-offs (time, scope, risk). Review your current commitments and cut 10-20% to regain credibility. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Implement an exec trade-off forum monthly to resolve priority conflicts. Create a capacity model using flow metrics; commit based on reality. Standardize intake with scoring and SLA tiers. |
| Metrics to track | Commitment reliability (planned vs delivered) Roadmap churn Overtime/on-call load Stakeholder escalation volume |
| Example scenario | A CTO started requiring displacement decisions. Stakeholders initially resisted, but trust improved because the team stopped overcommitting and started delivering predictably. |
Gap #10: Over-Directing High Performers
Ownership beats compliance.
Steve Jobs said it best: “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do.” Great engineers thrive when given ownership. Share the problem, not the solution. You’ll be amazed at what they build and how deeply they own it.
| What it looks like | Leaders prescribe solutions rather than stating outcomes and constraints. Engineers become passive: “Just tell me what you want.” Innovation slows and morale drops among top talent. |
| Common root causes | Leaders equate control with quality; fear of mistakes. Unclear decision boundaries; leaders intervene late and force rework. Managers lack coaching skills and default to telling. |
| Organizational cost | Top performers disengage or leave; retention risk increases. Leaders become bottlenecks; decision throughput drops. Teams lose learning opportunities and fail to develop judgment. |
| Diagnostic questions | How often do you provide the solution before hearing options? Do your leaders ask for recommendations with trade-offs? Are mistakes treated as learning loops or as blame events? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Switch language: state the problem, constraints, and definition of done – stop there. Require owners to bring 2 options and a recommendation. Hold a short post-decision review focused on learning, not fault. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Adopt delegation levels (recommend, decide, inform) and publish them. Train managers in coaching prompts and feedback loops. Implement decision docs for complex work to reduce rework and late interference. |
| Metrics to track | Rework rate after review cycles Decision lead time Employee engagement pulse (autonomy) Promotion readiness of leads/managers |
| Example scenario | A CTO shifted from solution-giving to asking for options. Within a quarter, engineers proposed better designs and ownership increased because they controlled the how, not just the what. |
Gap #11: Neglecting Engineer Motivation and Energy
Engagement is a performance multiplier.
Engineering managers often operate in binary mode: the next most important task goes to the next available engineer. But humans aren’t machines. While prioritization matters, leaders must also consider what energizes their team. Balancing mission-critical work with personally meaningful projects boosts engagement, creativity, and retention. Sometimes allocating time for work that excites an engineer, even if it’s not the top priority, can lead to a more motivated, resilient, and high-performing team.
| What it looks like | Work assignment is purely based on availability, not strengths or growth goals. High performers stagnate; curiosity and learning decline. Retention risk grows even when compensation is competitive. |
| Common root causes | No career frameworks or growth conversations; 1:1s become status updates. Leaders optimize for short-term throughput only. Work is not connected to purpose; engineers can’t see customer impact. |
| Organizational cost | Attrition of strong engineers and loss of tribal knowledge. Lower creativity and initiative; more “ticket taking” behavior. Harder hiring due to weak internal referrals and reputation. |
| Diagnostic questions | Does every engineer have a current growth goal and plan? When was the last time you connected a project to customer value in a team forum? Do you know what work energizes each of your top 5 engineers? |
| 7-day fixes (stop the bleeding) | Run a “motivators” check-in: ask each engineer what energizes and drains them. Add one small slice of high-autonomy work (improvement, tooling, tech debt) into the next cycle. Upgrade 1:1s: 10 minutes status, 20 minutes growth/energy. |
| 30-60 day systems (make it stick) | Create a simple career ladder and growth plan template for IC and management tracks. Institutionalize recognition tied to outcomes and behaviors (not heroics). Design work so engineers see customer impact: demos, customer stories, metrics. |
| Metrics to track | Retention and regretted attrition Engagement pulse (energy, autonomy, clarity) Internal mobility/promotions Referral rate |
| Example scenario | A VP began tracking “energy” alongside priorities and ensured each engineer had at least one ownership-heavy project per quarter. Engagement increased and attrition risk decreased because people felt seen and growing. |
30-Day Implementation Plan (Pick Your Top 3)
Use this schedule to translate insight into action. Choose the top 3 gaps from your scorecard, then execute the plan below. The goal is not perfection – it is measurable reduction in escalations and increased delivery predictability.
Week 1
Week 2
Week 3
Week 4
Next Step
If you want help closing these gaps quickly, the fastest path is a structured diagnostic and implementation plan that fits your organization’s stage, constraints, and stakeholders.
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Sometimes you don’t just need a coach, you need another senior engineering leader in the trenches with you, helping you untangle complexity and design a better way forward. As a former senior engineering leader and now CTO coach/consultant, I partner with you to diagnose what’s really going on in your org and build practical, workable solutions you can implement quickly.
Consulting is where we move from “how do I lead through this?” to “how do we redesign the system so this stops happening?”
This isn’t generic management consulting. It works because it’s:
You get a partner who’s led engineering orgs, not just analyzed them from the outside.
Every consulting engagement is tailored, but most follow a similar shape:
You’ll always know what we’re working on, why it matters, and what’s next.
Consulting is a good fit if you’re a:
If you’re thinking, “We’ve tried to fix this before, but it keeps coming back,” consulting is often the right lever.
To make sure this is the right fit:
You’ll know exactly what you’re signing up for and how we’ll measure progress.
By the end of an engagement, clients typically walk away with:
The goal is simple: leave you with a stronger organization, clearer systems, and a roadmap you and your team can own, long after the engagement ends.
My workshops are designed for engineering organizations that want more than inspiration, they want behavior change. As a former senior engineering leader and now CTO coach, I design sessions that connect directly to the realities of running engineering teams: escalation patterns, delivery pressure, leadership gaps, and exec expectations.
Workshops are where we bring your leaders together in one room (or Zoom) to practice new ways of thinking and leading, not just hear about them.
These workshops are practical, grounded, and specific to engineering leadership:
The result is shared language, aligned expectations, and consistent leadership habits across teams.
A typical workshop includes:
Workshops can be delivered virtually or in person and are usually 60–180 minutes, depending on depth and scope.
Workshops are a strong fit if you:
These sessions are built for CTOs, VPs of Engineering, Heads of Engineering, and their leadership teams.
To make the workshop worth your time, we’ll:
You’ll know exactly what we’re going to cover and why it matters before anyone joins the session.
After a workshop, clients typically see:
The goal is simple: every workshop should move your leadership team one clear step closer to being aligned, confident, and capable of running a high-performing engineering organization, without everything depending on you.
As a former senior engineering leader and CTO coach, I know what it’s like to be buried in escalations, yet expected to think strategically and lead with confidence. Individual coaching gives you a structured, confidential space to step out of the noise, see your situation clearly, and make better decisions for yourself, your team, and your company.
My coaching is built specifically for engineering leaders, not generic “career coaching.”
The result is steady, compounding progress rather than one-off “inspiration.”
Cadence: Most clients meet with me every other week for ~60 minutes via Zoom.
Session flow: You come in with a topic (e.g., a difficult report, a CEO concern, a messy org issue). We clarify what “better” looks like, unpack what’s really going on, and design practical moves you can make immediately.
Between sessions: Light async support (email/Slack-style check-ins) so you’re not waiting weeks to course-correct.
This is a working session, not a lecture. You’ll leave each call with more clarity, more options, and a specific plan.
Coaching is a good fit if you are:
You don’t need to be “broken” or burned out. You just need to be serious about getting better.
We start with a discovery call to align on your goals, current reality, and whether we’re a good fit.
Together we define clear coaching outcomes (e.g., less firefighting, stronger leadership bench, better exec alignment) so we both know what success looks like.
You’ll get a simple way to capture situations and wins between sessions so we can use our time efficiently.
No long questionnaires or heavy prep, just enough structure to make the work focused and effective.
Over our work together, clients typically gain:
The goal is simple: you become the kind of leader who can scale both the org and yourself without sacrificing your sanity in the process.
When your org scales faster than your leadership layer, everything starts to wobble, escalations spike, managers stall, and you end up in the weeds again. Organizational coaching is where we work with your leadership layer and systems, not just you, so the whole org becomes more aligned, autonomous, and predictable.
I bring years of experience as a senior engineering leader and CTO coach, so we’re working with real-world patterns, not theory.
Organizational coaching focuses on the system, not just the individuals:
Instead of one person “getting better,” your entire leadership layer levels up together and that compounds over time.
A typical organizational coaching engagement includes:
You’ll always know what we’re working on, why it matters, and how it connects to your business goals.
Organizational coaching is a good fit if:
You don’t need a “broken” organization. You need one that’s ready to mature its leadership layer.
No vague promises, just a shared understanding of where we’re going and how we’ll know it’s working.
Over time, clients typically see:
The goal is simple: an engineering organization that runs on a strong, scalable leadership layer so you’re not holding it together by sheer effort.
The 11 Costly Leadership Gaps Holding Back Engineering Teams
As an Engineering leader, your success is no longer measured by the lines of code you write or the features you ship, it is measured by the performance and growth of your team. Yet most managers are promoted with little preparation for this shift. The result? Leadership gaps that quietly drain time, productivity and morale.
Here are the most common and costly engineering leadership gaps I see:
1. Forgetting You are Measured on Team Performance
Promotion to manager is often celebrated with, “Congrats, you’ve done a great job!” The catch? You did a great job as an engineer, not a manager. Leadership means shifting from personal delivery to team outcomes. As a leader, your results are no longer about what you deliver, they’re about your team’s ability to deliver. You move from control to influence, from binary solutions to navigating ambiguity. Many engineering leaders feel discomfort shifting their identity from Technical Expert to Strategic Leader
2. Not Addressing Poor Performers
Under-performers drag down productivity and morale. Toxic employees do even more damage. When poor performance become an issue, many engineering managers change policy for the whole team in an effort to address the issue on a macro level to avoid a difficult conversation. Addressing performance issues isn’t optional, it’s a core leadership responsibility. If coaching doesn’t work, decisive action is needed to protect the team.
3. Retreating Back Into Code
When things go wrong, many leaders default to what they know: jumping into code reviews or architecture. But the real fix often lies in coaching, communication, or more fundamental change. Your job is no longer to write code, it is to build a team that gets stronger over time.
4. Weak Hiring Practices
“A players hire A players. B players hire C players.” Hiring isn’t just about filling a seat, it’s the beginning of a long-term partnership. Leaders who delegate hiring to HR or treat it as a checklist item miss the opportunity to shape team culture and performance. Leaders need to vet candidates for problem-solving ability, work ethic, and cultural fit, not just technical chops.
5. Failing to Broaden Your Vision
Each promotion requires a broader, more strategic view, but it’s easy to get pulled back into your previous role by habit or others’ expectations. If you don’t intentionally redefine your scope, you risk juggling both your old and new responsibilities—and doing neither effectively. Senior leadership isn’t about doing more; it’s about making fewer, higher-impact decisions that shape the future of the organization.
6. Leading Reactively
“We’re too busy to be proactive.” Sound familiar? Many leaders hope that more headcount will solve the chaos, but it rarely does. The real value lies in proactive leadership: prioritizing, mitigating risk, and improving execution before problems explode.
7. Solving Easy Problems Instead of the Right Problems
It’s tempting to tackle problems you know how to solve, even if they’re not the most important. As Peter Thiel says, focus on A+ problems: the ones that move the needle. Human nature draws us to B+ problems that feel satisfying to solve but don’t drive impact. Great leaders resist the pull to B+ problems and tackle A+ problems.
8. Failing to Prioritize
You start the day with three key goals. By evening, you’ve been “productive”, but none of those goals are done. This happens at the team level too. Without clear prioritization and triage, engineers drown in a flood of “urgent” tasks. Leaders must act as an abstraction layer between their team and the chaos.
9. Saying Yes to Everything
Trying to do everything is the fastest path to mediocrity. Ruthless prioritization is essential. Once your goals are clear, relentlessly triage every new request: if it doesn’t align, delegate it, delay it, or say no. Protect your team’s time and energy for what matters most.
10. Telling Great People How To Do Their Work
Steve Jobs said it best: “It doesn’t make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do.” Great engineers thrive when given ownership. Share the problem, not the solution. You’ll be amazed at what they build and how deeply they own it.
11. Neglecting What Energizes Engineers
Engineering managers often operate in binary mode: the next most important task goes to the next available engineer. But humans aren’t machines. While prioritization matters, leaders must also consider what energizes their team. Balancing mission-critical work with personally meaningful projects boosts engagement, creativity, and retention. Sometimes allocating time for work that excites an engineer, even if it’s not the top priority, can lead to a more motivated, resilient, and high-performing team.
Why This Matters
Each of these gaps chips away productivity, morale, and innovation. Closing them isn’t just about fixing today’s problems, it’s about creating space for strategic, proactive leadership that transforms teams!