I mostly break-down leadership tasks into 4 groups
1. delegation
2. negotiation
3. vision
4. inspiration
A typical EM only needs to do two of those well, same with higher up the ladder, though not the same two through the ranks - in my experience, great ones hit all 4.
Delegation is mostly about tasks, negotiation is about interactions (either salaries with HR, deadlines with PMs or even figuring out what a specific employee wants out of a job, because not everyone responds to just money or prestige).
Vision is more complex - a manager needs to be able to guess the rate of funding for the current project, read the way the wind is blowing and navigate the team.
Inspiration is so rarely seen, because it is hard to connect the results to the actions (the "be positive" part of the blog) - but I've had engineering managers who've made me feel that I'm in a "safe space" to do interesting things, instead of the reality that I'm in a closely watched, judgemental situation with large sums of money attached to each action and reaction.
Management is not always equal to leadership. They can be very different roles. (And, they can of course overlap.)
One is more focused on tactics, the other on strategy. One is deciding which direction to sail, the other is making sure everyone is keeping the boat going in that direction.
1. delegation
2. negotiation
3. vision
4. inspiration
A typical EM only needs to do two of those well, same with higher up the ladder, though not the same two through the ranks - in my experience, great ones hit all 4.
Delegation is mostly about tasks, negotiation is about interactions (either salaries with HR, deadlines with PMs or even figuring out what a specific employee wants out of a job, because not everyone responds to just money or prestige).
Vision is more complex - a manager needs to be able to guess the rate of funding for the current project, read the way the wind is blowing and navigate the team.
Inspiration is so rarely seen, because it is hard to connect the results to the actions (the "be positive" part of the blog) - but I've had engineering managers who've made me feel that I'm in a "safe space" to do interesting things, instead of the reality that I'm in a closely watched, judgemental situation with large sums of money attached to each action and reaction.