Communication tactics have a half-life.

In this post, I talk about a new way of thinking to become more influential in your conversations, handle pushback with grace and avoid you being drained like a squeezed-out dish rag at the end of a day full of meetings.

You don’t have to become a Dictator or empathetically collapse into a ‘Yes Man’ to get results from your team.

If you rate high on empathy and brilliance, chances are you fall into either extreme often.

In this post, I talk about how tuning your leadership style to be more coach-like can get you out of this sticky dynamic. You’re probably already coaching your team. I invite you to look at where you’re not and infuse the coaching style more. That’s the key to an organizational culture that gets sustainable long-term results.

One of the core ideas that I talk about a lot in my writing and coaching is Non-Linear Growth.

Beacause most managers in tech think they're underappreciated...

But the truth is, they are simply stuck in linear growth.

In this article, I want to talk about a different paradigm, Non-Linear Growth, and give you 10 easy, actionable steps to engineer such growth in your career.

Your leadership career gets into a non-linear trajectory when you have a team of highly effective leaders, not followers.

Specifically, when you don’t leave out developing their leadership to chance (aka company trainings) or wait for them to figure out their growth.

These are the 4 rules you want to live by, to develop your reports.

This deep-dive responds to the annoying feedback most managers receive, “Step up as a leader.”

If you’ve been left clueless with vague descriptions of what that means, I hear you. It would drive anyone nuts and get you fired up to hustle more (or quietly quit). I’ve got some harsh truths to put on the table for you to consider.

Ready for it? Let’s dive in.

Like it or not, this is the most critical factor in getting to your next level.

Engineering managers fall prey to 2 unique behaviors:

1. Abrasive Posturing (“I know I’m right/better, you better catch up”)

2. Empathetic Collapsing (“You’re not incompetent. I don’t mean to hurt you.”)

In this article I break down what leads to posturing or collapsing and how to have a different conversation.

Every conversation is an opportunity to uncover your leadership.

You are responsible for changing how your manager, your report, or your team “thinks.” And you are successful when you’ve moved their mind from the sea of surface-level tasks to a deeper why — why they’re doing what they’re doing — to create more impact.

The way you do this is by setting tight containers for transformation.

In this post, I share this framework of containers that some of the best executive coaches I know use to create change.

I often get into a victim mindset when things don’t go my way. I can only start feeling a deep, unshakeable confidence when I come out of its clutches. My teacher and coach’s interventions helped me develop a system for myself. Today, I want to talk about this self-inquiry method to get out quickly and back to leadership.

It has 3 steps:

1. Ownership: What emotions am I feeling?

2. Responsibility: What is my responsibility in this?

3. Creation: What tough conversations do I need to have?

It’s not as complex as it sounds. Let’s dive in!

A few days ago, I was struck by what Ethan Evans, Former Amazon VP and executive coach, posted on LinkedIn about the L7 problem.

As a professional performance coach, I’ve a slightly different take on this. So, this post is about 4 areas of focus if you want to stand out among the competition of Sr.Managers and work towards the director positions.

Let's dive in!

Most likely, you proactively try to have critical conversations. But, you kick yourself when those don’t go too well. This might cause you a cycle of self-doubt and resistance for the next time.

You see, courage is not the problem here.

The real problem is we have numerous sneaky mental stories (gathered from our past experiences) that stop us from willingly stepping into uncomfortable situations and, thereby, leadership.

In this post, I dive into 5 mental reframes you can adapt to improve this willingness.

We'd rather involve ourselves deep into a pesky production bug than deal with emotions and egos.

That default avoidance leads to missing some exponential turning points in your career towards senior leadership. Here’s why you need to change that.

The importance of networking is a masterclass nobody needs.

But, I’ve observed that with a simple mindset change, networking can actually feel good. You can enjoy the process and also open yourself up to opportunities.