
Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer? - yogrish
I am a technical manager and currently in a leadership role. My manager who is an executive, keeps telling me“ don’t talk like an engineer, talk like a leader” when I go to him for any people or operational
Issues. I always see from an engineer lens and possibly missing leader or executive perspective. How do I develop or change the way I talk as a leader. Did any one face this issue in the transition. Any pointers can be of great help.
======
nlawalker
A piece of simple, concrete, implementable advice I read recently that I
really like is "communicate in the language of _options_ , not demands,
imperatives, requests, or preferences."

Imagine yourself having a conversation with your manager or someone in a
relatively similar position about a decision or suggestion you have. How often
do you say things like "we have to", "we need to", "we really should", "can
we", or "I'd like to"? The problem with all of these statements, from the
perspective of someone like your manager, is that they hint at a passion or
personal preference that doesn't belong in a decision-making process or
conversation. In the flow of a conversation, it may feel like you're merely
emphasizing a point and bringing your (presumably solid) technical experience
to the table, but to the listener it often makes your suggestions appear self-
serving, poorly considered, and possibly irrational from the perspective of
the business.

Try to replace the above phrases with "one option is to..." and change your
thinking to complete the thought in a way that makes sense. Avoid picking
favorite solutions and presenting them as the clear winner or only option.
It'll get you thinking in terms of pros and cons and how to persuade other
people by appealing to _their_ point of view. It will make you appear more
level-headed and capable of making decisions that are good for the business.
It'll also remind you of (and force you to fully consider) the frequently
hidden option that's often forgotten when presenting a new idea or direction,
which is the status quo.

~~~
rsp1984
Given the support for this answer I will likely get downvoted for this, but I
disagree with this advice.

I am a co-founder (and CTO) of a small company myself and hence get to talk to
the folks in my company quite regularly. I disagree with the notion that
passion or personal preference doesn't belong in a decision-making process.
Not only _does_ it belong there, it is even a critical part of it, assuming of
course that you have good arguments to make for your point and convey it in a
respectful and professional manner.

Having passion and personal preference displays that you are engaged in your
job and identify with the work that you do and aren't afraid to speak your
mind, which requires a certain level of trust. Even more, you were hired
precisely because the company came to the conclusion that it can benefit from
your (uncensored) input.

It sure depends on the context but presenting your thoughts as "one option is
to...", is a marker that you are indifferent to the outcome. It generally does
not display trust, confidence or engagement.

So, if your manager is worth her/his money he/she can handle strong opinions
just fine and will also consider other viewpoints than yours in the decision
making process.

W.r.t. "talk like a leader, not like an engineer", king_panic has the best
answer IMO.

~~~
andyidsinga
I used to provide several options with background and rationale to my boss.

One day, he said, with a slightly frustrated tone, something along the lines
of : "Andy: you're providing what appear to be good options and detail here -
but someone in a "senior" position should recommend a path forward. Don't just
give me 3 options that I need to then go and figure out for myself."

from that point on I've always tried to provide a hard recommendation - and
rationale that includes a sort of decision tree approach. "We start with
______ [with good reasons to do so] then if X comes to pass we continue with
it and if Y comes to pass we can pick a a different path with another option I
have as backup."

The result seems to often be a discussion more about the upsides/downsides and
decision tree relative to _the business_ the organization is trying to support
(a good thing) vs technical merits of the options which the technical team is
trusted to be well versed in.

~~~
shostack
This is the approach I often take. I'm paid to be an expert and have answers.
If the situation has multiple paths, it is on me to weigh those with the
context I have and be prepared to adapt when I inquire about other
considerations I may have been previously unaware of.

There's nothing wrong with having an informed opinion as long as it isn't
presented in a combative or selfish manner.

That said, depending on who else may be in the room, if you naturally take
that approach, it is often good to sit back and let others speak, or encourage
them to if they are not the assertive type. Leadership is as much (if not
more) about listening than speaking.

------
king_panic
I am an app developer who interfaces with c-suite executives weekly.

Every time I get into the weeds with them I lose their attention. EVERY time.
They don't care about the technical aspects of my solutions, they care about
what it means to their customers functionality, the price they pay for the
solution or the time it takes a product to be delivered. So I put things in
those terms. I NEVER get very technical anymore unless it's absolutely
required.

In short, summarize your choices, decisions and solutions in high level
language from the perspective of what they care about -- that's it.

~~~
Delmania
In short when communicating with anyone outside of engineering, figure out
what they care about and speak to that.

~~~
sopooneo
I 100% agree. And one of the tricks I believe for this to work is that the
first step is listening. And when you're tempted to talk, don't. Listen more.
Ask questions in the vocabulary they're using if you want clarification, but
primarily just keep listening.

Because that is how you figure out what it is they actually care about.

~~~
Delmania
Yep! I agree as well, the less you speak, the more you listen, the better!

------
warent
Leadership is basically just people-engineering and business-engineering.
Engineers use tools to build products, and so do leaders.

The immediate assumption is that people are tools/resources to build the
product. That's talking like an engineer.

Don't use your team to work on a project/product. Use the project to work on
your team. They're not there to build the product. They're there to gain some
personal fulfillment. Use the development of the product to grow them.

In my humble opinion, that's talking like a leader. Flip the engineering
perspective over and communicate a new set of values with a layer of empathy.

~~~
rcfox
> The immediate assumption is that people are tools/resources to build the
> product. That's talking like an engineer.

That's more management-speak than engineer, in my experience. I hate being
referred to as a resource.

~~~
aantix
Agree.

Whenever I get contacted by a recruiter from Tek* .com or * Resource.com, I
absolutely cringe.

Who uses these companies? Who entrusts them to negotiate salaries on their
behalf?

------
byoung2
An engineer focuses on the what, where, and how...a leader focuses on the who
and why. For example you are considering adding a feature to your app. As an
engineer you think of what you need to build how to implement it, where to
store the data or put the logic. A manager focuses on why you should or
shouldn't build it, who on the team does what part, how much it costs, etc.
Imagine the transition from line cook to executive chef...when you're in
charge you have to think big picture about menus and marketing and let your
team handle the tasks of chopping of vegetables and plating entrees.

~~~
xkgt
I was an engineering manager until recently, didn't get much enjoyment out of
my role since I had to focus more on whats and whys instead of hows which is
what excites my engineering mind. Now I have changed job to an engineering
role and having lots of fun building stuff and learning new things. However at
times I wonder whether I made the right call, whether my career will stagnate
if I am not interested in moving up the org ladder. Make no mistake, I
absolutely loved the responsibility and freedom that came with a managerial
role, it was just my engineering appetite that was left unsatiated. Is there
anyway to keep oneself occupied with technical stuff in a managerial role?
Doing your teams work is not the right thing neither for the team nor for the
company.

~~~
Bahamut
One thing I have seen some managers do at my company is use their coding
skills to help streamline their work, i.e. create scripts to help pull data so
they can create charts or query for data to form some analytics to help inform
decision making on the right path forward.

I have also seen some still be able to get into the nitty gritty too to help
solve problems that are critical & beyond their reports' abilities at the time
and to ease the pressure.

~~~
marcotm
+1. Due to the small size of our company, my role still is somewhere between
lead engineer and a pure managing position, but it‘s enough of the management
schedule that I can no longer be a reliable partner for working on the core
product. So I try to automate/optimize internal workflows with my coding
skills, i.e., I build tools that improve things if they exist but do not break
or block things if they‘re delayed due to too many meetings creeping in.

------
andyidsinga
Here's my strategy whenever I have 1:1's or hallway "walking conversations"
with execs/GMs that are at least 2 levels above me:

1) try to teach them something new or interesting that has been learned that
they can add to their box of tricks/intel that they can pull out later in
other conversations. Include people/orgs that are involved. Include observed
successes/failures.

The goal is that when they leave the conversation - they've learned something
- and they've pegged you as someone who has something interesting to share.

2) avoid status reporting - that can move up through the regular chain of
command.

3) discuss side projects or other things orthogonal to the immediate business
- but that might be value to another or future part of the business.

4) avoid too much of the "idea guy" stuff - keep the things talked about to
things that are real and tangible. I'v'e found that idea's that often seem
grand and cool to me on reflection appear rather naive and unattainable.

..take all of the above with some salt - your millage may vary.

~~~
pault
> try to teach them something new or interesting that has been learned that
> they can add to their box of tricks/intel that they can pull out later in
> other conversations.

I'm trying to think of what such a thing might be and coming up short. Could
you expand on that with a simple example?

~~~
andyidsinga
"I watched this YouTube video on X, it was interesting because..."

"talked to my buddy who works for X they did this thing _____ ...big mistake"

"I've been collecting articles about ______, interesting trends X,Y..."

edit: another good one: "I went to meetup, talked to a bunch of people and
heard some interesting experiences with _______"

------
gdubs
Leadership and management are fundamentally different things. Leadership is
about making sure the ship is sailing towards the right spot — management is
making sure people keep rowing effectively. You can have the best team of
rowers, but if no one is focused on where the ship is actually headed, you’re
not gonna get where you need to be.

Therefore, speaking like a leader means being more focused on principles,
goals, mission. Delegate the “how” and focus on the “why”. Paint the broader
picture for the team so that they’re motivated to figure out how to accomplish
it.

At the highest level, leaders make decisions no one else is able to make.
Focus meetings by throwing questions back to the team to make sure they really
can’t solve the problem themselves, and then resolve to make decisions on
everything else so that they aren’t blocked.

~~~
zeroonetwothree
Management jobs have two aspects: people management (which you talk about) and
team management. The latter definitely falls into "where to row" in your
analogy. You can call that aspect of being a manager "leadership" but in
practice it's not a separate job. A manager that ignores that part of it is
failing.

------
wjossey
I run a free mentoring program as a form of community service, specifically
for managers and leaders. Happy to talk live if you prefer:
[https://freemanagermentors.com](https://freemanagermentors.com)

I’m a fan of Jack Welch when it comes to leadership, and I’d recommend
thinking about the “4e’s and a p” method.
[https://jackwelch.strayer.edu/winning/leadership-4es-p-
energ...](https://jackwelch.strayer.edu/winning/leadership-4es-p-energy-
energize-edge-execute-passion/)

In particular, how can you energize others around you? As a leader, you need
to motivate, inspire, and instill confidence, almost every day. You don’t have
to be charismatic or a good orator to do that either. You need to learn how to
connect with your people, understand their motivations, and utilize that
understanding in how you speak to them (language, tone, timing, feedback).

Lots to unpack here, but that’s my rapid $0.02 on HN. Good luck!

~~~
RainforestCx
Appreciated this — thank you!

~~~
wjossey
Absolutely!

I’d recommend “Winning” as a great place to start. It’s a good and quick book
on tape too that you can listen to over a week.

[https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Ultimate-Business-How-Book-
eb...](https://www.amazon.com/Winning-Ultimate-Business-How-Book-
ebook/dp/B000FCK3GO/ref=nodl_)

Ben Horowitz also touches a lot on leadership in The Hard Thing About Hard
Things, which is a personal favorite.

Checked out your website and love your cause! Please don’t hesitate to connect
if I can be helpful. Email is in my profile.

~~~
chrisweekly
Hey Wes! Upvoted your prev comment before I realized it was you. Hope all's
well; doing great here. A couple years ago when I worked for you, on your
recommendation, I listened to unabridged audiobooks of both "Winning" and "The
Hard Thing About Hard Things". Got more out of the latter than the former, but
both were worthwhile. Slainte, CW

------
chrisco255
Study persuasion and communication.

* Robert Cialdini's "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion * Jeff Cannon's "Leadership Lessons of the Navy Seals" * Dale Carnegie's "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

Attend Public Speaking workshops. If there's a ToastMasters club in your area,
join it. Improv can be another great way to learn how to get "less rigid" and
more open with your communication style.

[https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-
Rober...](https://www.amazon.com/Influence-Psychology-Persuasion-Robert-
Cialdini/dp/006124189X/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_0?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=DE7EDQ8WXW5HHGMAVH05)

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053ALPPQ/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0053ALPPQ/ref=dp-kindle-
redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1)

[https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-
People/dp/0...](https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-
People/dp/0091906350/ref=asc_df_0091906350/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=241983376253&hvpos=1o1&hvnetw=g&hvrand=16750785035456213073&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9060225&hvtargid=pla-364195442564&psc=1)

~~~
warent
But also don't overdo it. People can tell when you're just parroting the
countless business/persuasion books.

~~~
steelframe
Whenever I use a technique I've learned about in a book, I try to make it a
point that I'm doing that, and I frequently mention the book the technique
comes from. Just because it's in a book doesn't disqualify it as an effective
method. At the same time, being transparent about your methods is important,
since the methods themselves should be subject to scrutiny and understanding.

------
superconformist
That's easy champ, let me help.

First, litter your conversation with baseball metaphor. You want to be
fielding questions, starting sales plays, being the biggest swinger, and
touching base. All this right off the bat of course (to get the ball rolling).

Second, make prestige noun/verb mistakes. After goaling your IT spend, you'll
want to incent team members. Share your learnings from a go to market
perspective. This is the best way to add logos.

I'd share more but I'm currently out of pocket. Going forward, feel free to
reach out to learn more about talking like a leader.

~~~
echan00
This is just bad advice. Don't listen to this guy.

~~~
james_s_tayler
Honestly, it's not even wrong.

------
funkaster
I would assume you're giving too many details. People higher up the chain
don't have time for details: that's why they hire you, so you can make
decisions at that level.

You need to communicate:

    
    
      - status of the project
      - external blockers
      - progress on OKRs or KPIs
      - important personnel issues (e.g. people leaving, big HR issues, things that eventually will affect your deliverables)
    

The key is not to overwhelm with noise and learn to communicate what they want
to know.

~~~
slyn
Something I was taught during manager training in an unrelated field was the
mantra “clear and concise”.

Details are important but there is a time and place. Most of the time people
asking questions will ask for more info if they want it.

------
Alterlife
Think about your Audience. That's all there is to it.

Your team's job is execution, Executives job is prioritisation. Your job as a
first level manager is to make sure your teams work is prioritised correctly
and that your people visible and valued.

When you're talking to your manager, think about what details he would be
interested in and give him ONLY what he wants. In some cases it is about
omitting details, and in other cases it's about processing the details into
more digestible metrics.

As an example, if your team is spending time on a recurring issue and you want
to get executive blessing for a project to develop an automation tool, you
would open the dialog by hard-selling the problem. You are loosing a huge
amount of productive time, atleast 'x' man-days every week. Your engineers are
frustrated by this. Every team in your company is impacted by this, not just
yours... and guess what, MY TEAM can solve this.

------
gesman
Engineer doesn't mean "NOT a leader".

Besides your boss keeps you in engineering class position and criticizing the
way you talk without conveying his thoughts clearly or specific ways for you
to talk.

I'd question his leadership skills. It maybe that you don't need to change
much after all.

------
ismail
Your manager is being vague. Either purposefully or not.

If purposeful I would be concerned and ask why.

If not, he is not very good at communicating. So. The next time he says that
ask him:

“what do you mean by talk like a leader not an engineer, because every
engineer and leader I know talks with their own distinct style”

------
yingw787
I'm not a manager, but I've been in some leadership positions in the past, and
I can say my efficacy came from my ability to persuade others to do the things
I wanted to accomplish, and trust/delegate to others much of the execution. I
say this both having executed okay at some things at some times and having
completely failed at executing the rest of the time. These constants were
there when I was successful and not there when I failed.

I found it hard because I approached the problem with an engineering mindset -
there is a _right_ way to do things, a solution is fixed or deterministic, and
interfaces are efficient. While they may be true in code they are not with
respect to people. Often times the right way to do things depends on your
perspective, or there is no right way to do things, only less wrong ways. The
problem space, like figuring out what customers want/need/alignment between
both, is fluid and fast-paced. Interfaces between people are horribly
inefficient and communications latency and breakdowns destroy shared
understanding and undermine organizational trust/integrity, which in the end
calcifies organizations and teams.

In this environment, be humble. Recognize that physical intelligence does not
matter beyond some basic level, and emotional intelligence will save the day.
Always blame systems and processes over people. Be very, very, careful with
your words, body language, and actions; understand/appreciate that you start
off with less than complete trust because you hold financial/social power over
people now, and if you don't want to constantly hold court, you need to
actively/consistently build that trust and alignment with your team.

------
Brajeshwar
I don’t know how to you advise you in a precise and concise manner, and I’m
still learning and hope to do more. Let me try.

I’ve worked at massive service companies, including Razorfish, where I
excelled at allocating the right people at the right time, with optimization
for the best profit to the company. I’ve also worked on many products (for my
own Startups and for other Founders), and I’ve begun to realize the best way
to be a leader is to assume that 'everyone else is as good as you were,
perhaps even much better than you.'

I used to research ahead, prototype, and articulate solutions and ask the team
to make it better, execute it. Now, I just poke the tip of the problem and let
the team get involved early on, handle the problems and the solutions. I try
to acknowledge their accomplishments, let everyone know the awesome things
they did, the sacrifices they made and help them connect to one another. Give
enough warnings to non-performers and try to help them in private. Of course,
if even after a few tries, they are let go.

Earlier, I used to say that I’m good with designs, development, and business
too. These days, I believe I’m just a designer - I design opportunities,
careers, teams, products, and organizations.

That is my current method of leadership - talk less, let others be doers, make
others the hero of their stories. “Do now what you wish (or have) to be doing
1 year from now.”

You might have seen and heard many inspiring videos. Here is one I recently
saw and it strikes deep, Patty McCord’s 8 lessons on building a company people
enjoy working for
[https://youtu.be/iBa9EoEbb38?t=18](https://youtu.be/iBa9EoEbb38?t=18)

------
BurningFrog
I don't want to be a jerk, but if your manager was a better leader, he would
explain what he means in a way so you wouldn't have to ask the internet about
it...

------
hevi_jos
There is nothing wrong about being an engineer. In fact, most of the best
leaders I know are engineers, because having both operative skills and
decisions skills is incredible powerful.

You don't need to negate your engineering skills, just acquire leadership
skills over them. You will need:

-Skills about people, phycology types, influence, procrastination, deals and negotiation skills.

-Knowledge about the "Forrest" perspective of your business, in engineering you will have deep knowledge about the trees. It doesn't matter if you do a perfect job if you do the wrong job. If you do you will fail, and your best people will leave soon.

-You need caring about your people(the people on your team). Isolate the blame on yourself(and your system, change your system when things go wrong) for all errors of your people. Give credit to them when things go well.

People know when you care about them, they sense it. This overpowers anything
you say.

In today's business it is all words about how the most important things in the
business is its people, and they they trow their people under the bus. You can
even joke and say all day you don't care about your team that if they know you
care it doesn't matter.

This is very easy to state and say, but it requires years of practice and lots
of mistakes before you are good at this. Focus on improving one skill at a
time and log improvements on a notebook or something.

------
tyingq
"Talk like a leader" could be code for:

\- more (realistic) optimism

\- accountability / ownership

\- more listening, asking questions, versus making statements

\- stating things in business terms versus technical ones. For example, if
there's a technical problem, speak to options, costs and timelines instead of
the detailed reasons why something isn't working.

\- paying attention to business goals. For example, if there's a focus on
lowering expense (as opposed to capital), show the finance team that they may
be able to capitalize reserved instances in AWS.

\- weigh business goals versus technical goals. Does rewriting that tech debt
benefit the company now, or is there a temporary situation where deferring it
for 6 months is better? (say, using that time for a long wanted feature
instead)

------
8bithero
As a fellow engineer facing the same problem, I don't believe it's so much in
the language, but more the outlook and how you perceive things. As an
engineer, we tend to get into a lot of nitty gritty, with a lot of "it might
be possible if we first do X, Y and Z, but that assumes A and B don't take
place, in which case we need to do..." I guess the "correct" answer here would
be "Yes it should be possible, but give me a couple of days to confirm" \-
Most people don't care about the details. In their minds that's why they hired
you.

But again, the language is only a fraction of it. It's how you handle
situations. When you change your approach to problems then your language
changes as well. I'd highly recommend reading some books. The two I've read in
the past month and really liked where "Extreme Ownership" by Jocko Willink &
Leif Babin and "The Five Dysfunctions of a Team" and Patrick Lencioni Both
books give examples of how they handled situations, and you begin seeing
patterns in the speech they use.

~~~
arcanus
I'll second 'extreme ownership'

It is particularly pertinent to working across groups, organizations or even
separate businesses.

------
jaabe
Management is a trade, just like engineering, so you pick it up like you
picked up engineering, with education and practice.

I’ve spend two years learning leadership skills and I’m still often stuck on
the technical details. Because technical details matter to me, but they don’t
really matter in management. What matters is how well you execute, and you
execute well by picking the right staff, keeping them motivated and on target.

If the engine on a freighter breaks or needs a larger upgrade, then the
captain doesn’t really care why. He wants to know his options, how they’ll
benefit the ship, what they cost and what risk they come with. The same thing
goes for personnel problems, executives don’t care about what went wrong or
why, they care about how you plan to fix it.

If you’re looking for mentoring, it’s almost always better to do that with a
management colleague that isn’t your boss. Because your boss has the exact
same leader/employee responsibilities that you do.

------
DyslexicAtheist
surround yourself with non engineers and the language will come automatically.
Also read non engineering content. The Economist or CIO or other magazines and
books that use a non technical language and describe technical concepts
without jargon.

What you're asking here can be massive career changer and lift you up from a
skill perspective. Many business types have not much idea how your world works
but if you can bridge over into theirs it will certainly open doors.

After a while you might see a huge contrast when comparing to HN, reddit and
technical mailing-lists or any chat & digital channels. While "growing up on
Usenet" can give you an edge with reasoning / arguing in the technical world,
it can massively backfire in business.

Everyone in the business world I know makes their connections IRL (and not
online). So having hobbies that get you off your screen and into real human
groups would be a boon.

------
tixocloud
As a manager who transitioned from technical to commercial, the biggest shift
is speaking concisely and having an opinion on which direction to go and why.
Leave the details out and think big picture about how the issue affects the
entire organisation and what decisions/actions your manager needs to take.
Present solution options, articulate the benefits and costs, offer your
opinion and have a discussion.

------
reilly3000
Leadership is sales, the team are your customers, and your product is ‘Why I
should care’. Learn to sell, which means aligning with diverse motivations.

~~~
ospider
brilliant analogy

------
baytelman
I would start by reading and listening to Radical Candor's books and podcasts:
[https://www.radicalcandor.com](https://www.radicalcandor.com)

"We believe that the relationships you have with your team are at the center
of being a great boss. At the heart of these relationships is Radical Candor,
the ability to Care Personally at the same time that you Challenge Directly
when you fulfill your core responsibilities as a leader..."

They helped me a lot to connect with the people in my team, to create an
environment of positive communication, but most importantly it helped me shift
the way I communicate with other people in the company.

------
clintonb
Has your manager offered any specific feedback? Ask him what he perceives as
talking like a leader.

Are those your are leading having issues with your communication style?

~~~
yogrish
He didn’t offer any feedback. I went to him with a problem of my reportee’s
salary concern. Where in, I cannot take a call and do false promise. But, he
says that I need to come with a solution. And says he can’t spoon feed me on
how to solve the issue.

~~~
clintonb
A direct report has a salary concern. You promised something to the direct
report. You take this to your manager, and he tells you to “speak like a
leader, not an engineer”. Did I get all that right?

If this is accurate, you left a lot of details out of your first post. Most of
the responses won’t help you at all with this specific situation.

This seems like a budgeting issue. What did you promise your direct report?

------
mduerksen
This is certainly only one small aspect, but: Don't upspeak. [1]

It's one example for non-verbal behavior that impacts the perception of your
stance and status.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_rising_terminal)

------
AlexTWithBeard
Engineer: we can get to the town by bus, by car or by train. Each mode of
transportation has it's pluses and minuses. Specifically, bus is cheaper....

Leader: guys, we need to get to the town and we're taking the train, unless
right now I hear an _extremely_ convincing reason not to.

~~~
burlesona
Or when reporting status up the chain, simply: “we’re on schedule to arrive in
town, estimated time is between 4 and 6pm.”

Side note, one key to estimating is to start with a realistic and wide window
which you regularly update and gradually narrow as you get closer to done.
Being able to give forecasts that other people can count on is a big deal.

------
uptownfunk
1\. Keep your discussions high level.

2\. A leader’s job is to make sure the ship reaches its destination. A real
leader assumes responsibility for taking the entire team where it needs to go.

3\. Don’t be petty. Leadership is tough. You’re going to have to tolerate a
lot more and give a lot more than the others. Make sure your communications
reflect that.

4\. Dive into details only as needed, and better in a one on one where you’re
only speaking the parties its relevant to. Everyone doesn’t need to hear
everything.

5\. Other leaders in your same rank don’t have as much visibility into your
day to day as you do. All details won’t be relevant to them. Keep it high
level. Develop the skill of having a normal conversation, keep a few
appropriate jokes in your back pocket, and use a story or two to illustrate
your point instead of numbers and statistics. People remember how you make
them feel.

6\. Be observant, develop your skills on reading and displaying appropriate
body language, communication is more than just the words that come out of our
mouths.

7\. Know yourself, your pitfalls and strengths. Are you glass half full or
half empty. How does that impact your communication and your team. Find
complentary people and try to take insight from them.

8\. Make an effort to find a mentor if you haven’t already, these are
excellent conversations to have with them.

9\. PhD interview. Explain your research to a layman (doesn’t have to be
research and you don’t have to be a PhD)

10\. Celebrate wins, learn from losses, build some positive momentum around
your team and project.

All the best!

------
LoSboccacc
> don’t talk like an engineer, talk like a leader

one thing that's important to remember in general is to stay on topic. an
executive won't care to a certain extent about the technology choices or the
day to day work. figure out his goals within the company and only bring to
attention topics that can actually impact those, those might be technical of
course but most likely than not they will be about people and resources
scheduling, deadlines met and missed or possibilities for raising the team
efficiency and other cost savings that might impact the bottom line.

if you bring up a major technical point it must be something that actually
impact the company strategy, otherwise if it's within your responsibility to
call the shots, then call the shots. for example we are going to change our
multi-tenant strategy, now that I had to bring up for consideration because it
impacts the running cost per client, each client cost per scalability unit and
has wide effects on how we package, deliver and deploy each client
customization projects that's on top of our products offering; still you talk
about how all of this would enable independence between each other delivery
team and what you lose in term of increased costs for parallel development,
not about the technicalities of the task per se, that's what you talk with
your team, albeit if you want an happy team you let them figure out from a
very accurately described problem statement, because that what engineers like
to do.

you don't need to drop the engineering lens. you just need to stay on topic
and focus on talking about what's important to your other conversation party,
and that doesn't just apply to management and it's not "talk like a leader"
per se.

------
piinbinary
I'd ask him "can you give me advice on how to do that?" There is probably some
piece of context in his head that he's referring to (and he didn't realize
that the piece of context doesn't exist in your head).

------
sys_64738
He doesn’t sound like much of a mentor. Unstructured criticism just reduces
morale amongst rank and file when the message is constantly berating.

------
jaequery
Not sure how relevant this is to the question but a leader to me is someone
who has your back. Someone who is not afraid to throw himself for you. Someone
who helps you grow beyond your abilities. Someone who lowers himself and
elevate others.

I wouldn’t consider anyone without these qualities as a leader, no matter
their pedigrees.

------
lazyjones
Didn't face the issue, but focus on solutions, not on giving him the details
on your issues and asking for help. I.e. tell him confidently what you are
going to do and how it'll help the company. And give him some positive news
also, not just worries...

~~~
yogrish
Yes, he likes to listen to solutions rather than teams problems/worries. Good
advice.

------
austincheney
Engineers set and impose product/service definitions. Leaders impose people
definitions. Set goals, policies, and directives for you people. Make the
goals realistic, but don't let your people convinced you to lower the bar. Use
your engineering experience to destroy their weak excuses.

When your people meet challenging expectations reward them. When they fail
find out why. If there is an opportunity to improve a failing member of your
team then fix them. Otherwise get rid of them. usually everybody that is
qualified to be there can be improved to meet reasonable expectations. The
people who can't are usually not qualified for the position or don't want to
achieve your baseline.

------
strikelaserclaw
Think about who your audience is before talking to them, talk in language that
they can understand. I know a great engineer friend of mine who when he talks
to analysts or business people delves into "stored procs, threading model",
this is not what you want to convey to people who don't know what those things
are, focus on high level overview, think about what would be important for
them to know from their perspective. To do this ideally, you must as a manager
understand business need, and what is valuable to them, then based on that you
can communicate with whoever in the context of whatever they can understand
and want to know about.

------
FigmentEngine
There are three roles in play here: * individual contributor (engineer).
someone has skills to do something. works out how to achieve something. *
manager. someone who ensures teams are happy, succeed and progress. manages
resources (money and time), allocating to deliver results. * leader. someone
who others can follow, paints a vision of where we want to get to, and why.

most people ask others to be leaders, when they mean managers.

you can be a IC and a Leader at the same time, or a manager and a Leader at
the same time, but IC and Manager is often disaster (too busy focus on solving
an issue to look up and see other issues).

------
harryf
Two books well worth reading in this context are;

\- Getting More by Stuart Diamond - [https://www.amazon.com/Getting-More-
Negotiate-Succeed-Work/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Getting-More-Negotiate-
Succeed-Work/dp/0307716902) . On the cover it’s about negotiation but most of
what a leader does involves negotiation. Rather than try to convince you, I’ll
just say Google engages Stuart Diamond to trail engineers in negotiation.
There’s a talk by him here at Google that might convince -
[https://youtu.be/2QtZ-vObJrk](https://youtu.be/2QtZ-vObJrk)

\- The other is “Corps Business” - [https://www.amazon.com/Corps-Business-
Management-Principles-...](https://www.amazon.com/Corps-Business-Management-
Principles-Marines/dp/0066619793) \- about how the US Marines do management.
The big thing you can get some this book is expressing projects and tasks in
terms of the _end goal_ instead of the steps required to get there. Make sure
teams collectively understand the end goal and let them figure out how to get
there is the basic message. That implies you need to put your effort in being
good at story telling and presentation

------
bigcloud1299
he is telling you:

Operational level \- to keep the technical jargon out, dont give technical
details but give business strategy related details. if you need then go in
tactical ways you can solve the problem. \- your information should be
bulleted list of 4-5 words per line in business terms. \- you should talk in
terms of program level, org level strategy, program level budget/matrix work,
dependencies etc. \- your metrics conversation should be in terms of business
terms such as basis point impact to the program. \- you should not talk
architecture or logic level design but in terms of connecting orgs, blockers
due to various programs. \- view and think in terms of non-biased decisions to
be made objectively. \- talk in terms of process not code \- i do not want my
team members to have crap excuse about defects occur b/c this and that issues
but i want to know metric based impact and recommendations and alternatives.
\- present 2-3 options (unbiased) to help make right decisions.

People Level talk in terms of \- strengths and opportunities. \- building
bench strength. \- talk in terms of pipeline \- team building activities, team
collaboration, compensation packages, org chart and skill needed. -

lastly, do not go to your boss with your daily problems, he is your last
resort.

------
booleandilemma
Don’t begin sentences with _I think_ \- state your opinions as facts.

If something you say is wrong, respond with _that’s what I was told_ to
deflect blame.

Gather information from your subordinates and then report it to your superiors
without giving your subordinates any credit.

Read books by Peter Drucker and Harvard Business Review.

Pepper your conversations with terms like: "knowledge transfer", "velocity",
“MoSCoW”, “KPIs”, and talk about “surfacing” information to your users.

Good luck!

~~~
arbie
> Gather information from your subordinates and then report it to your
> superiors without giving your subordinates any credit.

This reads bitter. In truth, higher ups generally do not care about who needs
to be credited.

If _anyone_ in their org accomplished something, the higher up has
accomplished it personally, by representation.

Trying to take credit up the chain is like your hand taking credit for putting
the spoon of food to your mouth.

------
unfocused
Here is one pointer. Your Question is: "How do I develop or change the way I
talk as a leader?"

* Lead with your point first. The above question should've been first in your HN post. Try it yourself. Cut the above line, put it first, and then the rest of the text, and reread your HN entry.

* When you start writing with your point first, you start practicing how you should write/talk to higher ups.

* Once you get better at writing point first, you then should start speaking point first.

* When you speak point first, you will grab attention. Once the attention is there, only then can you go into detail, should you be asked to go further into detail.

Examples for your question:

People Issues:

(GOOD): We may have to replace so and so. ... then proceed why so and so is
not performing as a conversation.

Do not start with: (BAD) So and so is getting on my nerves. I asked him to
write the code for widget and he keeps not reading the APIs and going off the
tracks blah blah blah.

The same applies for operational matters. Start with the point, and if details
are asked of you, then keep going. It's a conversation, not a one sided rant.

I won't add to the numerous books and links that people have added of "great"
leaders and how to be a great leader because there a lot of good ones in this
thread.

------
drieddust
While suggestions around self improvement are very important, please also
evaluate the competence of your manager and then adapt. Self improvement is
essential but not sufficient.

More than once I have encountered clueless executives who are happy only when
you are a mirror. They are not interested in solving any issues from below
unless something personal for them is at stake.

------
jldugger
> I am a technical manager and currently in a leadership role. My manager who
> is an executive, keeps telling me“ don’t talk like an engineer, talk like a
> leader” when I go to him for any people or operational Issues.

What does your manager say that means? This strikes me as the 'critical
thinking skills' of management -- nobody knows what the phrase really means,
and if they did they wouldn't want it. It is every manager's job is to provide
clarity to their directs, even executives.

At a first brush, your job is to speak like both a leader and an engineer. You
lead engineers, after all. That means connecting the engineering, the "how",
with the business results, the "why." One of your team's goals might be to
reduce AWS costs, by tweaking Java GC parameters.

Going deeper, you might consider personality traits. The DISC model of
personality divides humanity into four categories: Dominance, Influence,
Steadiness, and Conscientious. To keep it brief, we generally perceive high D
personalities as 'leaders' and high C personalities as 'engineers.' Talking
like a leader in this context means demanding results, and making decisions
under uncertainty, while an engineer is more likely to ask for more time or
more data, obsess over quality beyond what the customer needs or expects, and
avoid talking to people. High D communications tend to be brief, while high C
communications may be overly detailed.

More pessimistically, perhaps your exec simply means to stop talking about
technology they don't understand, and have no interest in understanding. If
this is the case, you should consider whether an executive responsible for a
technical team is sustainable. Certainly some amount of simplifying
explanations can be expected of middle management, but this is a two way
street and some efforts should be made to understand the tools used to solve
your business problems.

------
HHalvi
Things i learn't the hard way on transition from a Founder to Product Manager
being a non technical guy:

Firstly understand the transition means a lot of unlearning, sometimes with
parts that you hold dear to you. My advice to you is to be honest with
yourself, your team and stakeholders about the same. Makes it easier on all of
the folks and eases the transition.

3 Circles of X: As you start going up the ladder, your focus is on a birds eye
view of three circles: Your Customers/Markets, Your Products and Your Team.
You are here since you get the bigger picture and you need to help your team
do all of their core functions with as little hassle as possible. I came to
terms with myself when i started thinking of myself as a lubricant, and it all
made sense.

Tons of people go through this, find people that have recently gone through
the transition and talk your problems out. Also probably give Managing Humans
by Michael Lopp a read.

Hope this helps!

------
qznc
I would assume this is more about talking like a manager. Engineers are
leaders too. Technical leaders.

Talking like a manager primarily means to focus on time and money. How much
does it cost/save/earn? How long will it take? Just two numbers. At least
managers would like it to be that simple. It isn't and that makes the
translation between management and engineering hard.

You still must try to answer the questions though. Pick a random open bug or
feature: How long will it take? How much value does it bring to the company?
If you can answer both questions precisely in a sentence you should be fine.
You probably cannot. Now try harder. What has to change so you can? Just get
some info from someone? Change fundamental processes in your company?

Now you have work to do. Before you start doing that, ask again: What is the
value in dollars? How long will it take?

Oh, and put a limit on the recursion there.

------
chopete
I went through hearing the similar ("talking like an engineer") comment
myself. One thing made a big difference in transitioning to company
leadership.

I thought I was a leader of the people reporting to me. A leader in a generic
sense, as in civic leaders. I have to fight for or work towards their
betterment.

With that thinking, every discussion with upper management would come across
as the defence, for the team, for the processes.

One executed corrected my understanding that I am not a generic leader. I am a
company leader. That means the company is first and foremost. My communication
and thought process has to reflect that.

It sounded a bit harsh in the beginning but it helped me become a better
company leader and good for the people reporting to me and customers in the
long run.

------
salamanderman
An aspect of it that I've been taught is, rather than explaining why something
can't or shouldn't be done, explain what it will take to get something done.
E.g. don't say "we can't do X because it's too expensive, requires too many
people, is too risky, ..." Instead say "doing X would require raising
additional funding or diverting funding, we'd need to pull people from other
teams and/or hire additional headcount, will require some risk reduction
investigation for two weeks before we can give a complete assessment, etc."
Then let your CEO, board, whatever decide or help decide if the costs are too
high.

------
fsloth
Actually rhetoric is one of the things Aristotle still has valuable things to
say.

Basically all the rhetoric books I've read (not that many, not an expert) are
just expanding and giving examples to Aristotles "Rhetoric".

The modern english translations are quite readable and the concepts are
straightforward. They circle around the concepts of ethos, pathos and logos.
I.e. you must convince the audience you are worth listening to, then you must
appeal to _both_ of their feelings _and_ logic.

This means various things, including toning your message depending on the
audience. And, even engineers are affected by emotions, you just need to find
the right context :)

------
zakum1
Think about commercial goals, not just technical goals. What will make us
successful as a business? What do our clients need?

Have answers rather than questions. Many posters pointed out that it is good
to provide options as potential solutions. But this may not be leadership.
Engineers love options because we are creative and options are opportunities
to experiment. The problem is that we need to be bold when a decision must be
made. A decision is explicitly closing off our chance to explore all but one
of the options. This is tough leadership.

(We need to know when it is time to make a decision and when it is a time to
explore options)

------
dgzl
In University, I would see this message written on one of the college's best
Electrical Engineer professors' office door:

"Efficiency with machines, effectiveness with humans"

It's a powerful idea, and I think the point is obvious.

------
Endy
What your manager is implying but won't say is, "talk like me". So do that.
Think of how he rephrases your reports, how he puts things - and talk like
him. That's what he wants to hear.

------
ams6110
Learn to use words like synergy, leverage, no-brainer, disrupt, and
incentivize. Use phrases like deep dive, core competencies, outside the box,
and move the needle. Presto, you're talking like a leader.

~~~
jmchuster
Tongue-in-cheek, but i'll rephrase it a bit to be maybe slightly useful. Look
at the words above, and notice what they're not. So, imagine you're not
allowed to talk using words that talk about the implementation, but only from
a high level using words like those above. Given these constraints, how do you
provide more value to your team and to the company than someone who
implements?

------
heisenbit
Your impact depends on the authenticity and emotions you put behind it. Faking
any particular style is bound to get you into trouble in the long run. That
does not mean specific techniques are not worth trying out and seeing whether
they fit you.

As a leader you are making decisions and stand behind them - not all of them
are purely based on the subject matter but take the wider context in. As an
engineer you are evaluating options. These are distinctive roles and lower
level managers have to do both. Be clear with yourself and others when you are
doing what.

------
rajacombinator
With platitudes like that, good chance your manager is not really a leader
either. It’s popular, especially amongst MBA types, to toss the word “leader”
around with no concept of what it actually means.

------
Ironlikebike
Joined just to respond as I have some experience in this area.

I went from engineer, to engineering manager, to engineering director and had
a similar conversation with my boss who is an Exec VP.

It's not clear whether he's responding to how you talk to your team or how you
talk to him, or both.

If the latter there a few things to consider. You need to come to your boss
with several possible solutions to your problems when you bring your problems
to him. Let him advise you and give you ideas you haven't thought of, but he's
not going to want to just solve all your problems. He has plenty problems of
his own. He hired you to make decisions at a lower level.

You should bounce your instincts off of him and let him course correct you.
Tell him how you're approaching solving the underlying causes of problems, not
just addressing symptoms.

Be careful what your bring to him and how you talk about your problems. When
you say 'fire' to an exec, they think you mean a forest fire, not a camp fire
and they'll act with a heavy hand and get upset with you if they end up over
reacting. The exec's wagons include artillery and nukes, not small arms. My
mentor used to say 'Executive exposure can be good... But you can die from
exposure'.

Talk about engineering risk, milestones, long term plans, etc. He wants to
know you've considered the risks and have mitigation strategies. He wants to
know that you know what things will cost. He wants to know what your effort
estimates are. He wants to know that you've done due diligence in procurements
and hiring to prove you need what you say you need.

He doesn't want to know who is doing what or what isn't working well, unless
you need him to solve the problem with a nuke. If something isn't working,
come up with new ideas.

If he's referring to how you address your team, you need to not help people
solve their immediate problem by only talking with them about how to address
the problem at hand.

You need to talk to them about expectations, habits, and behaviors. You need
to have accountability conversations.

I had a training course from the folks that wrote 'Crucial Accountability' in
how to have these conversations. It is incredibly effective. I highly
recommend this approach.

You need to assess operational execution and develop procedures to improve it
rather than just fighting fires. You need to help them be better, correct,
rebuild, stay out of trouble in the future.

For operational leadership the book 'The Phoenix Project' really helped me
develop a strategy.

A great book for personnel leadership that I used is 'First break all the
rules'. It will help you cultivate talent in employees.

Develop a leadership philosophy of your own that you believe in and use it in
your conversations with your teams. A great resource is the book 'One Piece of
Paper'.

I hope these help.

------
heller97
In my experience with engineers (I'm not an engineer.) they think that
technical details are the whole thing, and are the totality of what they need
to communicate. But nonengineers need more, contextual information to
understand a project, like the intellectual history of the technology, a story
about the development process, maybe some examples of it in use, an image or
video is useful. To my mind a leader would talk the whole enchilada.

------
davefbb
Give your perspective as it fits into and supports the larger business context
of the company. This perspective (in moderation) would likely benefit your
team as well.

I've also found that many non-technical executives have some level of fear of
technology, so remembering to explain things in ways that they can understand
(and helping them gain some degree of technical understanding in the process)
can also be effective.

------
enriquto
Replace half of the meaningful sentences that you were about to say with some
random bullshit (with the appropriate buzzwords), and you are good to go.

------
mvpu
As a leader, you should talk differently with your team and with execs. With
your team: understand what they are saying quickly, ask good questions, make
them think, teach them how to think and work with your principles and wisdom.
With execs: understand what they want, "own" and ask what you need (logically)
and "get things done". The buck should stop with you.

------
heller97
In my experience engineers think that technical details are the whole story.
But nonengineers (I am not an engineer.) need more contextual information,
like some intellectual history of the idea, examples of the technology in use,
stories about the development process, maybe an image or video. To me a leader
is someone who can talk the whole enchilada.

------
bwaine
A lot has already been said in the thread about identifying, aligning with and
assisting in achieving your organisations goals. I'd also add part of
"speaking like a leader" is speaking in a persuasive manner, convincing other
in helping with the above.

I found "Thank You For Arguing" by Jay Heinrichs a really good introduction to
this.

------
Dowwie
Solutions, not problems. Schedule times for your reports up the chain and
before you discuss, remove yourself from the details and reflect. Write a
summary for yourself with key take aways. Try to avoid real time discussions
about "how's it going" with someone who is asking for summary, not detail. Get
back by end of day.

------
CloudNetworking
My only advice based on the information you have provided is you shouldn't go
to your manager with "people or operational issues", you should go to him only
when you need him to unblock something so you can apply your solutions to
"people or operational issues". In other words, don't bring him your problems.

------
DanBC
Talk about strategy, and when anyone asks for detail say "well, that's a bit
operational but I'll get someone to put together a report for you", then wait
for a day, then tell them what you would have told them anyway. But with the
addition of SPC charts and references to a (potentially mythical) Gantt chart.

------
c-smile
"How to talk like a leader, not like an engineer"

Leadership requires some psychopathic traits:
[https://www.elitedaily.com/life/motivation/psychopaths-
make-...](https://www.elitedaily.com/life/motivation/psychopaths-make-the-
best-leaders/1108247)

------
hkmurakami
Think about your people first and foremost.

------
digitalengineer
Here’s a good summary from ‘Career Warfare’ about how you are being perceived
by your manager/boss and what they need.
[https://www.slideshare.net/happysammy/career-
warfare](https://www.slideshare.net/happysammy/career-warfare)

------
rcdmd
Vagueish advice for a vaguiesh problem-- When presenting issues, I'll almost
always fallback on something like this-- 1. Details of the problem with
history of other related issues. 2. 1-2 sentence assessment of the problem
that helps summarize everything. 3. 1-2 possible solutions.

------
squirrelicus
How do I describe this in engineer terms...

You need a cohesive interface to your boss. He doesn't need the implementation
details of your problem. You should return a clean, terse data model from your
TechLeader.ReportStatus() function.

You are a complexity manager in leadership just like you are as a developer.
He's your customer like your sister team consuming your API is your customer.

He needs decisions you make, summaries of your problems if you cannot solve
them, and multiple solution summaries if you need help picking one.

On the flip side, managers need to understand why, and you need to be capable
of explaining why if the problem is not intuitive to them. But you'd be
surprised how many problems are intuitive to them when the fundamental moving
parts are summarized well. If the boss needs more detail, he will ask.

EDIT: one last thing: focus on actions, not reasons. We did X, then Y, and Y
didn't work, so we did Z. Now our timeline is at risk. We need to push back
two sprints.

He doesnt need to know reasons Y1,Y2,and Y3 why Y didnt work. If he wants
them, he'll ask. Actions, not reasons.

------
franciscop
Side question on the leadership bit (not OP): my friend told me about this
whole Toastmaster concept recently, does anyone here have experience? I a very
wary of these kind of things, so would love to hear from another engineer's
point of view.

~~~
zejn
I'm currently a happy member.

I'm getting _a lot_ of value by voluntarily exposing myself to talking and it
has thus far made me more aware of the way I speak, the way my body reacts and
that the stage fright is something that never really goes away, even for
"experienced" speakers.

To get a feel for the structure, meetings are commonly comprised of three
parts:

1) prepared speeches (these are members doing their assignments according to a
specific course they're working towards),

2) table topics (impromptu speeches, also available for guests to
participate),

3) evaluation and feedback.

Prepared speeches are the most visible thing and a way to progress towards the
completion of a course.

Table topics are 1 to 2 minute speeches in reply a given situation, that can
be a question, a picture, a situation or anything else. It's a practice for
getting better at unexpected speaking opportunities and usually a way for a
guest to see how valuable the feedback is and the existence of a real need to
improve. They're moderated by topics master.

Big part of the meeting is evaluation and feedback, which is a thing that's
rarely given in real life. Toastmasters make for a playground where you can
practice giving feedback. There's several evaluation roles in a meeting:
speech evaluator, timer, ah-counter, grammarian and general evaluator. I
personally see most growth in the evaluation roles, as they can be quite
difficult to master.

The event is held together by someone in the role of toastmaster, which opens,
moderates and closes the event.

THEN AGAIN, similarly to the number of ice cream tastes, there's also a number
of ways the Toastmasters meetings can be held. For someone who dreads public
speaking, a critical feedback might kill off the willingness to speak
entirely. Culture of acceptance can differ widely between clubs, so my advice
would be to visit multiple clubs, if possible, to see which you find most
fitting.

If you do decide to join, the Toastmasters membership fee is 90$ yearly + 20$
new members fee, which is usually not that big of a deal for any decent human
in tech, but clubs might have higher fees to cover other expenses, eg. renting
a room.

------
nickstefan12
My cynical answer is that engineers often work with “yes”/“no” about
feasibility.

Leaders usually keep the conversation above that level and think in terms of
which problem needs solving rather than yes/no’ing specific implementations.

------
dedalus
Absorbing Uncertainity and Emitting Certainity is what leaders do, so I think
the ask here is to not quantify the uncertainity not explain dimensions of it
but give an output of what can be done given all the uncertainities

------
jondubois
I think it's bullshit advice. It sounds like the remnants of a dying
mysogynist corporate culture where appearances mattered more than substance.

Working people are smarter now than they were at any point in history. They're
just pretending to be stupid in order to fit into existing social power
structures. But they can't continue to pretend forever.

The notion of a working class which is smarter and better informed than the
ruling class is a new situation which did not exist before and it's going to
be interesting to see how it unravels as the intelligence and ambition gap
widens.

We are currently in a transition period; a dark age for progress. Smart people
are being suppressed and coerced by a powerful class of ruling idiots who are
using any means necessary to maintain a highly unstable status quo which is
the enemy of progress itself.

~~~
venantius
I strongly disagree. Leadership is fundamentally emotional-political-
strategic, which are not skills that most engineers invest in. You can argue
that more engineers should and do have those skills, but when someone says
something like take an executive/leader lens rather than an engineering lens,
they're trying to imply that you're only thinking about solving a logic puzzle
rather than trying to win sales.

------
joncline
I'd recommend a year of Toastmasters. Both the communication and leadership
track will be immensely helpful. Additionally, it will provide direct
evaluation from a more diverse audience that you likely have at work.

------
adamcrow64
I notice that big tech companies are run by people who are technical. This
allows you to talk to them far more efficiently. If I recall, the most common
professional background of CEOs in the fortune 500 is Engineering

------
RickS
There's not enough info here about whether your actual language is the issue,
or if it's your ability to think or communicate more broadly. I'll try to
touch on both.

Language as signal - jargon:

I'm going to steal a couple lines from this comic:
[https://xkcd.com/1735/](https://xkcd.com/1735/)

* Appreciate that the way you are interpreted is your responsibility

* Understand that there's no way to opt out of sending messages based on how you present yourself, and that attempts to do so send strong messages of their own

Signaling that you're in somebody's ingroup can result in comfort and
credibility. You want this.

Used positively, tribal language lowers the cost of communication between
parties. When I'm talking to engineers, our shared word for "diffing", when
referencing things that aren't code, saves a LOT of time, because it's a
"symlink" to a more complicated and specific concept of comparison. It has the
secondary benefit of signaling, in a very short space, a certain minimum depth
of familiarity with a domain. People who are neither technical nor curious
don't hear those words as potential references to deeper concepts. They just
hear silliness. They are missing something important and useful.

All jargon falls on a spectrum between "deadly effective", "tryhard", and
"absolute horseshit" depending on its specific use. Leadership jargon can be
every bit as deep as nerd jargon.

There are a lot of comments in this thread with various levels of butthurt
that lash out at the unproductive use. When jargon is used ineffectively – or
performatively to signal competence, insight, or proximity to the perceived
cutting edge – its power is diluted and it risks becoming a cartoon of itself.
The people who are misusing it have turned it from a thing that sounds silly
to outsiders into a thing that is legitimately silly.

But don't make the mistake of assuming leadership jargon is hollow by default.
If you are the conversation partner with weaker domain familiarity, you are
poorly equipped to determine whether a piece of jargon is being used to convey
something hollow or something important. Every piece of it started out meaning
something. Dig in a little. Embrace the language of other people's domains
instead of acting too good for it.

Level of detail:

Speaking of language and signaling...

In engineering land, getting in the weeds, knowing very specific things,
spending lots of time exploring finer points all equate to thoroughness and
signal that you're a good nerd. In management land this can signal the
opposite: an inability to prioritize. "Getting The Big Picture" can come off
like a quip from a hellish 80s yuppie boss, but it's important to scope your
level of abstraction to your audience, and the higher up the org chart you go,
the higher level your conversations are expected to be. People are going to
have their own ideas about what's important, so there's a multi-level game of
knowing how to find out what you need to know, knowing those things, knowing
what other people think is important to know, and sending a signal
accordingly.

Range of vision/concern:

One of the lessons I had to learn painfully a couple times is that sometimes
being protective of or generous to your team can be bad leadership. For as
much as you are a downward facing shepherd of the people who report to you, so
too are you an upward facing shepherd of the organization that sustains you
and all below you.

There were times when I pushed for product directions, features,
headcount/budget allocations, etc that would be best for my team, the people
on it, or the problems we cared about. I butted heads with the C suite a
bunch, everybody had a bad time, and it was only once I had some time and
distance that I looked back, apathetic where I was once deeply passionate, and
realized that the things I was pushing for made no goddamn sense if it had
been my money, or would not have impacted the higher level business outcomes
in ways that justified some kind of cost (not necessarily monetary cost). This
leads to the next point:

Quality tolerance:

Engineering culture frequently rewards obsessive concern with the quality of
what you're making. The cost of this pursuit often has diminishing returns
very early on, and it can be painful to adjust your mind to view "we only ever
shipped the bare minimum across 5 domains" from a source of deep shame to a
source of resolute pride, or at least grim acceptance. Sure, another 3
headcount would let us take some section of the company from 3/10 to 9/10 in
quality, but if the resultant gains can't pay that extra ~million in salary,
maybe it's not the right time for that idea, even if you mean well. Lots of
things that seem "right" to do are not actually justifiable. (See the section
on Ought world and Is World.) Engineering culture says "make the best thing".
Sometimes leadership culture says "don't fucking die". This doesn't mean you
should ship shit by default, or go in expecting to build bad things, as this
can be really toxic for morale. It just means that you should measure the cost
– in cash, opportunity, morale, and more – from a broader scope, and optimize
for rightness at those higher levels instead of at the lower ones. Sometimes
this means making sacrifices.

Metagame:

[https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-
half/](https://www.epsilontheory.com/too-clever-by-half/)

Related to the "shepherd up as well as down" idea, your goal is not to win
single games. Your goal is to win the set of all games. If you get the feature
you want this sprint but burn up the goodwill of someone you'll have many
consequential interactions with in the future, you've lost a metagame. Today
is better, at the expense of all tomorrows. Inversely, sometimes losing is
winning. Let some stuff slide. Give more than you take. Position yourself so
that when something _seriously important_ comes along, you have a cache of
influence, credibility, and good will to spend on it.

Ought World and Is World:

Great engineers and great leaders both have their eye on a north star.
Ambition is important. But it's a trap to mistake to use your mental playbook
for the world that you WANT to exist in the world as it actually is. In the
world that ought to be, your peers, customers, market, vendors, etc are
rational actors who make sane decisions and have sane values, for your
personal definition of "sane". In the is world, there are many combinations of
quizzically different values, ignorance, and malice – in that order. One
concept to be especially careful of here is "Justice". I'm not saying you
should behave unethically. You should be an ethical leader. But a lot of the
time I find that when my gut speaks with words like "deserve", "fair", or
"unreasonable" – I'm looking at the world through an intermediate lens that's
colored by my value structures. I like to try and reverse that lens, and
imagine to the best of my ability a world where the argument I'm against is as
true, sane, and worthy as I view my own arguments to be (steelmanning – the
inverse of a straw man). Very often this reveals a credible alternate
perspective where it turns out my answer is just an answer and not The Answer.

\---

There are lots of other comments here from people who have been spurned by
bullies, sociopaths, or some other management phenomena.

The peter principle: high performers are promoted until they are in a position
where they cannot highly perform, so they stay there, sucking.

The dilbert principle: incompetent people are promoted to the position where
they can do the least damage.

My take is only one version of the answer to your question. It's intentionally
focused on metacognition, metagame, and the assumption of positive intent. For
a fairly different take that spends more time on bad actors and incompetence,
I highly recommend The Gervais Principle: [https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-
gervais-principle/](https://www.ribbonfarm.com/the-gervais-principle/)

------
known
Talk like
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_engineering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_engineering)

------
ssss11
Why don’t you ask him/the company to pay for some management training for you
- he’s identified a weakness and has given you this role, it’s his problem to
develop you.

------
hbarka
I think the Six Thinking Hats technique by Edward De Bono is a good framework
for shifting into different perspectives of thinking and might be relevant to
this topic.

------
piggybox
As someone who stepped up from an engineer to a leader, I've been struggling
with this talking-in-2-roles problem. Thank you very much for bringing this
up.

------
cglee
Ask your manager to send you to this:
[http://coleadership.com](http://coleadership.com)

------
timwis
Is he referring to the way that you talk to your team, or the way that you
talk to him? If the latter, there's a chance he's insecure about his lack of
technical knowledge and reassures himself that his role is to be the "leader"
so he doesn't need it. And so when he hears you getting outside his comfort
zone he projects that value onto you.

If he means to your team, or it has nothing to do with technical language,
then I'm way off!

------
nian2go
Keep in mind that being a manager is a different career. You’ll have different
objectives and need different skills.

------
joncline
I'd recommend a year of Toastmasters. Both the communication and leadership
track will help immensely.

------
dvfjsdhgfv
Learn about the rhetorical triangle, especially its ethos and pathos aspects.

------
oracle2025
Watch Movies and channel your favorite Monologues.

------
kgwxd
Just pay the advice forward. Tell everyone you're managing "don't [talk|act]
like a(n) [job title], [talk|act] like a leader".

------
pictur
Do you mean the CTO position?

------
as-j
I really like some of the feedback on this question, but I think one thing is
missing. _Ask_ your manager what he means, and have them give you an example.
Preferably an example of something you did that was like an engineer and what
should the leader have said.

We don’t know you or how you talk or bring problems forward, so we’re pulling
very general examples. Good managers should not speak in ridles, if you don’t
understand what they’re asking ask them. This isn’t a problem you have to go
and solve, you’re not trying to devine meaning from tea leaves.

——

Some generic thoughts, cause well this is an ask. :)

1\. Bringing problems to your manager. Are they of the right level or could
you have solved it yourself? As you move up the career ladder/responsibility
you have more responsiblity which means you deal with problems that have
larger scope. My Jr guys solves (and creates) problems in functions, my Sr guy
solves problems in systems, I solve problems that affect product lines accorss
departments, and my VP solves problems that can affect the future of the
company. But don’t bury problems that can’t solve quickly. The judgement is
knowing which is your problem and which is theirs.

Ex: My manager is worried about the next generation systems and how to improve
companby operation by adding new widgets faster, cheaper etc. I’m worried
about the next few quarter of road map and how to transition from current
development to the new system, how to hire for growth. My Sr guys are worried
about getting the next firmware release out, planning for the one after, and
making sure we hire engineers they want to work with.

—-

2\. Options, don’t always bring problems bring options to help fix them and
allow them to add their own. I have a project that needs to be done June 30th,
if I bring him “it’s impossible” a good manager will go “but what if we hired
contractors?”

So what options can you bring forward for the impossible project:

a. Shift the end date (generally something you can’t do, but make sure you
understand why it’s June 30th and not July 31st. Did you promise this date
earlier before unstanding scope? Doy you understand the ramifications of
missing it?)

b. Redcuce scope, work overtimes/long hours/burn out the team, other
engineering direct solutions.

c. Can you find new resources, how much would it cost? Are they internal,
external? Could you shift someone from another low priority project? What’s
your projects priority?

d. What’s the cost of your various options compared to being late/early, etc.

—-

3\. Think of the organization not just your project. How does your work fit
into the whole and what’s its importance, etc.

4\. What people issues are you bringing your manager? Are you making sure to
understand people aren’t computers/resources. They have feelings, different
drives and desires, etc.

Anyways, ask your manager what they mean!

------
crdrost
_Ask more questions._

You got like one little answer about this but this is like general life
hacking, tied to an axiom from salesfolk you might’ve never heard before,
“Tellin’ ain’t sellin’.” You never, in other words, start talking to a new
client by telling them all about your company and your products and what they
do, you start by asking about their day, about their family if you know their
family, about their business level problems.

What is at stake is that in every conversation you are like an anthropologist
doing ethnographic study. I don’t mean that as normative but descriptive—I
don’t mean “this is the attitude I recommend you adopt” but rather “this is
how every conversation is right now, today, whether you like it or not.” There
is always something like an ‘immediate local culture’ and you are always
trying to discover it and speak in that language. In most corporate contexts
you would very happily tell people that the company is posting record
profits—but you might get a different reaction at a subset of the company that
was informed that the company is changing strategic directions and will
therefore be laying them off. An employee who just found out that his wife is
pregnant might not mention it to a boss who was expecting too, but then she
had a miscarriage. Someone from accounting comes in and says that your data
does not match the general ledger under WB-code Y104-B and wants to make sure
that nobody is stealing money and now you have to figure out what they
consider to be a WB-code and what Y104-B is and what they were expecting and
why those do not match up perfectly. In each of these three cases you are an
observer of a local context who needs to learn what some local culture
considers acceptable or unacceptable.

Now there is a sneaky way that salesfolk fit in to most local cultures, and it
is to be genuinely curious. I want to know what your problems are, as you
describe them, and as you do I will be able to learn a lot more about your
language and your priorities and your values. You will be teaching me,
indirectly, how to sell you my product: “So you were talking about how you
need to be able to periodically monitor each of the Floozels in your company,
we have technology which automatically periodically monitors web sites for
changes, I wonder if there's a way that we could treat each Floozel as a web
site or so, even if we didn‘t solve the monitoring problem immediately we
could at least give all your Floozel Monitors at your company a weekly
automatically-up-to-date checklist of every Floozel they're supposed to
review, just by pretending that each one is a web site that changes every week
when we send out the new email batches... but maybe we can make it even more
smart than that, I’ll talk to my engineers.” I cannot have that conversation
if I come in from the get-go talking about web site monitoring solutions, they
will never tell me about their problems with Floozels and they will just say,
“uh, we have not updated our web site in two months, I don't think it needs
weekly monitoring” and the conversation will be over.

Ask a lot of questions when talking to your superiors, identify what their
interests are and what sort of problems or constraints they feel around them.
Ask a lot of questions when talking to your subordinates and peers, too.
Especially ask questions about your own understanding: “So if I'm hearing you
right, you’re saying that the shop floor system is not an information tracker,
you already had gone paperless on your shop floors since two years ago?” “Well
I mean we would still like it to track the same information because we don’t
want to have two separate computer systems but yeah, if that is the _only_
thing that this does then I don’t see the point either.” “OK so what _is_ the
point, what do you actually need here?” “I mean sometimes adding a supervisor
will slow down the output of my shop floor, and I don’t have a great sense of
where things get stuck and where we could add resources to make money. I
really need to know what everyone is spending their time on and how fast stuff
has come out in the past with different configurations of people.” “Aha, so
this is a _time_ tracker?” “Well uh, I guess yeah, it is, but uh, you gotta be
careful talking about tracking time in this industry. Guys on the floor will
just assume that you mean that you’re not going to pay them when they go to
the bathroom.” “Oh so we're talking about tracking the time of the projects,
not the time of the people.” “Exactly, exactly.”

Do not rush to speak, either. You can nod and give confirmatory grunts to let
someone know you are listening when you are not summarizing your guess about
what they just said in a question, but just... lay off a bit. Give them a
silence, see if they fill it up with some more words. And when you do speak,
remember the advice of Hillel the Elder, not to say anything that you do not
want someone else to hear, no matter how much you trust the people you are
talking to. Or if you prefer the New Testament, James 3 is a direct lesson for
you about speaking like a leader.

------
executivetech
1\. Don't pass technical info up the food chain

2\. Executives only wanna know, why and what and who, not how.

3\. See Engineers are minions whoes work is to handle complexity for the
company in return of payment, if you've to think about the complexity yourself
as a manager or executive, your engineers aren't doing a very good job at it
and someone must be fired, adopt this view.

4\. You and executives are on another level controlling technical resources
which are like sheeps, so be a German shepherd and guide them properly.

Pass down only the information essentially to operate. Engineers having more
info/control is dangerous.

5\. When being asked about a particular hire, use this language. Well Rick is
technically sound but doesn't know much about how things work in business
(plaster a wicked smile), he has to be tamed then he will be good for the
company. You've to express that you've total reality bending mind control over
your minions.

Executives like bullying character because they get job done. So think about
how you can appear like a bully to your executives.

You need to make executive feel in control, like you are his loyal dog who is
like a jail warden/bully to minion working for the company.

Infantize the Engineers in your language when talking to Executives. After all
infants can't take of their own food and need on-campus sushi to feed
themselves

Stop asking for advise on HN, here Engineers outnumbered executives so good
answers will only receive downvotes.

In real life, being politically or ethically or morally correct has nothing to
do with the Success.

~~~
52-6F-62
Depends on who you’re working with, and for. I think it’s extreme to say
that’s universally true.

One of the core tenets of the company I’m currently working for is to
acknowledge, share knowledge, and own the “what” and the “how”. This is
codified in explicitly those terms, as well. It’s a large and old company in
the radio technology and communications space. (Note that there’s plenty of
criticism to level at it, but that area is one where they’re very good)

------
shmooth
a leader would ask for clarification, so there's always that.

------
aj7
Great way to immediately lose credibility.

------
leed25d
My advice to yo is to hire an assistant who is capable of teaching you these
things. Unshakable trust will be needed on both side. Try to find someone like
a recently mustered out Army Ranger. I am not kidding.

~~~
RickS
I think this is an impractical first step, but for the downvoters, executive
coaching – including specifically ex-mil coaching – is a real thing that
people do and get value from.

If you want to get such experience without sourcing and paying a coach, read
Jocko's Extreme Ownership: [https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-
SEALs/dp/1...](https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-
SEALs/dp/1250067057)

Marc Andreessen called this out as the book he gifts most often, which IMO is
a strong positive signal.

I personally found the book a bit difficult, but I think that's a flaw in me
more than the book. The person I received it from is someone who lives it much
more fully with staggeringly impressive results.

~~~
8bithero
Hehe, I also recommended the same book in my reply. Definitely, a must read!
:p

What do you mean when you say, you "found the book a bit difficult"? As in
tedious to read, or difficult to implement?

~~~
RickS
Difficult to implement, by way of being difficult to agree with in some
places. It advocates a level of self-blame that feels like it would be
effective from a self-motivation perspective but is not necessarily always
reflective of reality.

Of course I have responsibility for my reaction and my mindset in situations,
but it seems that the book creeps into "taking the blame for everything".
Though I get the feeling that fuzziness comes from my worldviews as much as
Jocko's.

I've got a background that involves a good amount of shame and anxiety, so I
think I have problems with the distinction between feeling "responsible" for
situations in the "shepherding" sense, which is what I think Jocko wants, and
feeling "culpable" for situations which is what the inner voice of shame
freaks out about.

The difference between "culpable" (bad?) and "accountable" (good?) is a very
nuanced one, and I haven't been able to fully reconcile those ideas.

It reminds me of this SSC post, about different people needing different
things or getting different things from books.

[https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/09/all-debates-are-
braver...](https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/06/09/all-debates-are-bravery-
debates/)

It's been a year or so since I read the book. Sounds like I need to revisit it
and get some clarity on my stance.

------
eyeball
Repeat the name of the person you’re talking to frequently, and lie a lot.

~~~
0815test
So _that_ 's where that "Tim Apple" thing came from! That's genius - only a
true leader could have thought of it!

