Coach, Not Boss
Most engineering managers I have known were excellent engineers and reluctant humans. The job is the inverse. The technical bar got you the title; what keeps you in it is something quieter.
I was a bad first-time manager.
Not catastrophically bad — I did not yell at people, did not lose anyone, did not blow up the team. But I was bad in the way most first-time managers are bad: I treated the role as a slightly larger version of being an excellent engineer. I optimised for output. I corrected technical missteps in public. I ran 1-on-1s as status meetings. I thought my job was to be the smartest person in the room.
The thing that broke me out of it was a single sentence from a senior leader, delivered in a 10-minute hallway conversation that I still remember:
“PKD, your team is afraid of disappointing you. That is a problem. Fix it.”
It was a kind sentence and a hard one. It took me about a year to actually fix.
The shift
Here is the shift I had to make. I am stating it as plainly as I can, in case it is useful to a younger version of you.
Stop being the boss. Start being the coach.
A boss says: here is what we are doing, here is the standard, hit it. A coach says: here is what good looks like, here is where you are, let’s close the gap together.
A boss measures the team by output. A coach measures themselves by how much the team has grown.
A boss expects to be obeyed. A coach expects to be understood.
A boss is replaceable by a more competent boss. A coach is replaceable only by another human who has chosen to do the same quiet work.
What the coach actually does
I have been doing this for a few years now and I notice the coach version of the manager job has a few daily disciplines:
Listen first, then ask. In a 1-on-1, my job is not to deliver a status update or to give advice. It is to ask the question that surfaces what the engineer is not saying. Ninety percent of useful manager work happens in the second half of a 1-on-1, after the easy ground has been covered and the real conversation finally surfaces.
Praise specifically, in public. Correct specifically, in private. This is old advice and it is good advice. The damaging version of the inverse — correcting in public — produces the team I described at the top of this essay, the team afraid of disappointing me. It took me too long to learn it.
Treat their career like it is yours. When I sit with an engineer to talk about their growth, I treat the conversation as if I am personally responsible for them being at the next level eighteen months from now. I am not — they are. But the posture of treating it as my responsibility changes the conversation entirely. It stops being a check-in and starts being a campaign.
Be early on bad news. Be patient on good news. Bad news travels faster when it travels through the leader first. Good news lives longer when the team gets to enjoy it before the next thing arrives.
Hold the standard, gently. Standards held with anger become fear. Standards held with kindness become culture. The standard does not change. The way you hold it changes everything.
What changed in me
The shift from boss to coach changes you, not just the team. I notice three things.
One. I have become much better at being wrong. As a coach, being wrong is just another data point — useful, even. As a boss, being wrong was a small identity wound. The coach version of me does not flinch when an engineer politely points out that I have got something backwards. It is a relief, not a threat.
Two. I have become a better listener everywhere — with my children, with my parents, with old friends. The 1-on-1 muscle is the human muscle. You cannot turn it on at work and off everywhere else. Or rather — you can, but only by paying a price you do not realise you are paying.
Three. I have stopped needing the credit. The team’s wins are now more satisfying than my wins. I am not sure when that switch flipped. It is one of the quiet pleasures of doing this work long enough.
A small list of things I would tell a first-time manager
I am compiling this as I go. Most of these took me years to learn the hard way; if you are starting out, take them on credit:
- The first thing your team will measure you by is how you treat the lowest-status person in the room.
- The most important conversation you will have all year is the one you are most tempted to avoid.
- A clear no, said early and kindly, is more respectful than a soft yes that you will eventually have to retract.
- If you find yourself complaining about an engineer to a peer, you owe that engineer a 1-on-1.
- The team is reading your face during the all-hands. They will remember the face longer than the words.
- Hire slowly. Onboard with care. Promote courageously. Part ways honestly. Do these four things well and most of the rest will sort itself out.
The line I keep on my desk
I have a small index card on my desk. It says:
People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
It is from Maya Angelou. It has been in front of me for ten years. It is the whole job, written in twenty-three words. The engineering work is real. The shipping is real. The technical decisions are real. But the thing the team will carry with them for the next twenty years — the thing they will tell their own teams about, long after the codebase has been rewritten — is the felt experience of working with you.
That is the quiet centre of being a coach.
A final note
I am still bad at this on bad days.
I still get short with people when I am tired. I still write a sharper Slack message than I should have, and have to walk it back the next morning. I am not finished. Nobody is.
But I notice that the direction is different now. I am moving toward the coach, not away from him. The boss is the version of me I am trying to outgrow.
I think that is the whole point of being a manager long enough.