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12.02.2025 21:02
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Self-care is a leadership skill, not a luxury. Too many managers treat self-care like an afterthought — until burnout forces them to stop. I’ve been there (still am sometimes). Our mental state is always reflected back to us, and not just at work. We must take responsibility for it. No one needs a burned-out you. So every once in a while, I revisit these principles before exhaustion really sets in — I hope they help you too: 1. Protect my calendar I block time for deep work, breaks, and personal priorities. If I don’t, someone else will. If I have important tasks, I schedule them. 2. Set a hard stop time I decide when my workday ends and I stick to it. Blurred work-life boundaries are the fastest path to burnout. In my team’s Slack channel, I set a daily reminder to write down “Wind-down notes” as a ritual to close the day and leave work at work. 3. Say no more often Not every meeting, project, or email needs my attention. It’s hard when we love to help. Starting with “no” unless convinced otherwise protects my energy. 4. Prioritize recovery like a deadline Sleep, exercise, and hobbies aren’t optional. They are the fuel that keeps me effective as a leader and fully present with my wife and sons. Remember that endorphin rush after a good game of squash? 5. Automate and delegate aggressively If a task is repetitive, I should automate it. If someone else can do it 80% as well as I would, I must delegate it. My time is too valuable for low-leverage work — and by preventing others from learning, I just create more work for myself. 6. Measure energy, not just output If I feel constantly drained, my workload is unsustainable. I must track how I feel at the end of each week and adjust accordingly. I cannot do my best work nor be my best self by running on an empty tank. Self-care isn’t selfish It’s how I can stay sharp, lead effectively, create a good atmosphere, and avoid becoming another burned-out manager who regrets not starting sooner. Life’s too short to gri…
Managers treat self-care like an afterthought—until burnout hits.
These 6 principles keep me sane:
1. Protect your time
2. Log off by 5
3. Say no more often
4. Prioritize recovery
5. Automate and delegate
6. Measure energy, not just output
Life’s too short to grind through chronic burnout.
Hosting a meeting is like hosting a party—you set the tone. You welcome people in, guide the flow, and make sure no one’s stuck in a corner awkwardly sipping their drink. When the energy dips, you bring it back up. When things get chaotic, you steer it back on track. Engagement isn’t automatic, it’s created. Team leaders must energize meetings to boost engagement, and here are 5 deceptively simple tactics that have helped me countless times: 1. Have An Agenda A meeting without a plan is a waste of time. Explain the goal at the start. Outline key topics, share them in advance, and stick to them. But keep the agenda open: anyone can add a topic—ensure they are prefixed with people’s names to quickly get the right person to speak when the time comes. This keeps discussions focused and sets expectations from the get-go. 2. Share Your Screen While Note-Taking Seeing key points in real time keeps people engaged. It also ensures alignment—everyone follows the same discussion flow, reducing misunderstandings and side conversations. If they somehow lose track, they can easily catch up. Pro tip: create a new browser window for that meeting—no one needs to see your million tabs! And after the meeting, you can share the notes. 3. Call Out People By Name For Their Input If you ask, “Any thoughts?” you’ll get silence. Instead, direct questions to individuals: “Alex, what’s your take on this?” It encourages participation, keeps people’s attention (“what if I’m being called to speak next?!”) and prevents dominant voices from taking over. This is deceptively simple and yet so efficient! Just ensure it's an invitation, not an obligation. 4. Gently Keep Things on Topic Meetings derail when tangents take over. If despite the note-taking and the agenda the conversation drifts, step in: “That’s a great point—let’s note it for later. Right now, we need to decide on X.” This keeps momentum without shutting people down. When discussing next steps at the end of the meeting, go…
Hosting a meeting is like hosting a party—you set the tone.
Team leaders must energize meetings to boost engagement.
How?
1. Have an agenda
2. Share your screen while note-taking
3. Call out people by name
4. Gently keep things on topic
5. Use silence strategically
When I became a manager, I set regular 1:1s with my team members because that's what you're supposed to do, right? My experience until that point was: We'd open with some small talk I could then share whatever bothered me They'd tell me they'd pass on the feedback We'd close with discussions about operational things If I needed a venting session, these sessions helped. But that was about it. It wasn't much of a discussion. I'll always remember my first 1:1 as a manager: my colleague thought we were done after 5 minutes. And then I asked about how they saw their career. We ended 30 minutes over time and they seemed fired up—I was onto something. That's when I realised something: 1:1s aren't just a checkbox—they're essential. Here are 3 must-have conversations every people manager should have regularly to turn 1:1s into a powerful leadership tool and build thriving teams: 1. Feedback session (looking back) It's hard to grow or meet expectations without feedback. In my experience, people want to know how they are doing but managers often fail to provide feedback, either because they forgot or because it was going to be uncomfortable. A focused feedback session is a great way to acknowledge recent successes and reflect on things that did not go as well. If we want our colleagues to grow as fast as they can, we can't afford to wait for annual performance reviews. It's our duty to help them focus on the right priorities. 2. Career Planning (looking ahead) "I would like to talk about your career ambitions and see how we can work together to get there." People love to talk about themselves and their ambitions, as long as it doesn't feel forced. Understanding their aspirations helps you spot opportunities within the company to build their track record. You can also suggest skills they should practice and improve before they would be considered for a promotion. And maybe they're just happy where they are—not everyone wants to climb the career la…
When I became a manager, I saw 1:1s as a chore.
In my first 1:1, my colleague thought we were done after 5 minutes.
Then I asked about their career.
30-minutes-over-time later, I knew I was onto something.
Here are 3 must-have conversations every manager should have regularly:
“Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face”. Mike Tyson doesn’t work as a manager in a tech company, but he knows how easily we can forget our principles or “deeply held” values when adversity punches us in the face. There just needs to be enough pressure for this to happen. We get overwhelmed with all the problems we need to solve and we become reactive. Principles are a life-vest when all else seems uncertain — trust me, I really understood “Don’t shoot the messenger” earlier this month. When losing control, managers could make good use of 15 minutes of their day to read and ponder on the following 3 Stoic quotes — to regain perspective and agency. 1. “Waste no more time arguing what a good person should be. Be one.” — Marcus Aurelius Managers lead by example through inspiring others. Being respectful. Showing courage and humility. Acknowledging when we were wrong. Taking one for the team. Considering the bigger picture. When we just seek faults in others, we ignore our own responsibility. 2. “The willing are led by fate, the reluctant dragged.” — Seneca My first boss told me the battle is lost if you need to motivate people — or that beatings will continue until morale improves! As managers, our success is tied to our team’s success. And it’s really hard to rebuild momentum if the mood is low — after two reorgs, I would know… Somehow, we need to keep going and delivering. And it’s just so much more pleasant for everyone when “the stars align” — supporting the team should always be our #1 priority. 3. “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” — Seneca Always be biased towards taking action. Even when things aren’t so certain, there’s always something in our power to better prepare for eventualities. There might be untapped opportunities — we just need to keep an open-mind to be able to see them. Luck does not just happen, we should actively seek it. Make new connections, join new conversations, offer your help. Managers a…
"Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face".
When adversity hits, it’s easy to lose focus as managers.
Let principles be your anchors.
These 3 powerful Stoic quotes remind us of what it takes to be a leader:
Ever notice how back-to-back meetings leave you wiped out? As a new manager, I made the mistake of putting one meeting after the next. I thought this would help me create focus time blocks at other times in the week—I still wanted my coding time. Just imagine the quality of my one-on-one's after the fourth or fifth meeting in the last 3 hours. I simply couldn't sustain my energy levels and emotional availability. But it doesn't have to be this way. Just like in web design, we need proper spacing to let things breathe. Your brain needs white space too. And it can be as simple as leaving a 15-minute gap between each meeting. That's it. It doesn't mean you will suddenly get free hours to meditate every day—though some breathing exercise can still be a good idea. You might need to get some water, have a toilet break or just open the window to let in some fresh air. Or your Slack is on fire and you need to check. At the very least, you now have some time to jot down those action items you promised. Or you might just do nothing. That works too. These gaps are never a waste of time. They are the difference between complete exhaustion at the end of the day or still having some energy left in the tank to enjoy life after work. When it spans multiple days, draining weeks spill over weekends for recovery. Nowhere in your contract does it say you have to burn yourself out (or maybe it's time to switch jobs!) That trick won't always be available when others take control of your calendar. But you're a manager now—use that power to protect your time. Start with 15-minute gaps.
𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸-𝘁𝗼-𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸 𝗺𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗴𝘀 = 𝗶𝗻𝘀𝘁𝗮𝗻𝘁 𝗯𝘂𝗿𝗻𝗼𝘂𝘁
As a new manager, I batched my one-on-ones.
By the fifth, they were talking to a zombie.
15-minute gaps changed everything.
Managing people is the ultimate test of adaptability. We all know that context-switching is bad. Yet somehow, as managers we must learn to switch hats faster if we wish to lead effectively. It takes work to get better at all these different roles—after 2 years as a manager, I'm still learning every day. I hope that acknowledging all these different roles we play as managers can help you reflect on your journey and be more intentional about which area you want to improve. The Coach Micromanaging is THE best way to achieve results, said no one ever. For the team to realise its potential, we need to guide from a higher level. Our job isn't to do the work—it's to create the conditions for others to grow and succeed. We can coach effectively by: asking thoughtful questions: "what options did you consider?", "can you explain the trade-offs?", "what would you do differently in that other context?" offering clear feedback: "your PR review was very detailed and caught some unexpected bug, good job!" or "your question was buried in the middle of your message, next time make it obvious to get faster help." It's never a one-off—one-on-one's and team meetings are always great opportunities to wear that hat. The Problem-Solver When is the last time you had a day without surprises? Whatever it may be, it's never a question of *if* there will be a problem to solve, but rather *when*—this has been a critical adjustment to my expectations. I found it much easier afterward to jump in at a moment's notice. We assess the context, we make decisions, and we unblock the team. Some conflict arises—get people to talk it through and moderate the discussion. The team is suddenly unsure which way to go—choose the most appropriate path forward. The Visionary When our teams are in the thick of it, they lose touch of the bigger picture. in the middle of a long, painful migration, the work can feel endless. That’s when we reconnect it to the business impact: "This migration wil…
Managing people is the ultimate test of adaptability.
Coach
Problem-Solver
Visionary
Cheerleader
Spokesperson
Organizer
Enforcer
Effective leaders must take on these different roles every day and switch effortlessly between them.
As staff engineers go through the transition to manager, they need to realize they've accepted a new job. What worked as a staff will not necessarily work as a manager. Dealing with legacy systems can be messy, but working with people is always a delicate dance. You need to develop a new set of skills. In the two years that I've been a manager, these 3 challenges have shaped me and forced me to adapt to that new reality. I hope they can reframe some of your experiences and help you navigate this transition better. Learning to delegate tasks It is such a silly thing, but when people asked me something in a private Slack message, I assumed they wanted me to solve it, personally. In reality, they were asking my team to do something about their problem. I usually didn't want to bother my team members, to protect their focus time. And so I little by little took on more than I could manage. No one seemed to appreciate the sacrifice as it was mostly invisible. When my team members would not stay focused and pursue side quests instead, I would become very frustrated. But that was on me. I had a team and it was my job to drive it to get the results the organization expected—I had to delegate clearly and follow up. Give ownership, not instructions. Managing former peers If you stay within the same team (which seems to be quite a common situation from anecdotal experience), it can be difficult to exert authority when you all used to be peers or still consider yourselves as peers. Everything becomes a negotiation of sorts. You need to prove the value you bring to the team as a manager so that they may start considering giving in on some things. Even if you have the last word institutionally, that's not how you can inspire your team to do better. What I found to work great in my case was putting extra attention on 1:1s. It's often something managers struggle with, and so any value you can provide there is unexpected and pays off disproportionately to the effort. Example…
Transitioning from staff engineer to manager is like starting a new job.
The challenges?
‣ me → us
‣ authority ≠ leadership
‣ hands-on = bottleneck
Your growth comes from facing them head-on.
A few years ago, we were constantly fire-fighting. The more requests we solved, the more requests we got. It somehow never seemed to end. We could never focus on solving problems proactively. And then my manager said to me: "You know, the more things you touch, the more you destabilize the system, and the more you create work for yourself." Yes, that request came as a result of us fixing that other thing, without fully understanding the context. Yes, that other request forced team A to adopt a breaking change, but they need to adopt this other urgent fix because production is broken. Yes, that outage somehow happened because of unforeseen interactions between legacy systems and the fix we deployed. The Efficiency Paradox The more efficient we make something, the more we use it. When the goal becomes to solve as many requests and as quickly as possible–––and you are successful at that, you build a reputation of efficient problem-solvers. People will naturally think of you when they face their next problem. It's not a terrible thing in itself—unless the team is already overwhelmed. What's more, you might introduce lots of quick fixes instead of solving problems more thoroughly and sustainably. The tech debt increases. The situation worsens. Platform teams must take another, less reactive approach to provide better support. Not All Requests Are Created Equal Fire-fighting often stems from a lack of clear priorities. When you're overwhelmed, stressed out and in a reactive mindset, it's easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. And so you just tackle the next problem hoping the game of whack-a-mole will end. To break the cycle, define what exactly the team should focus on at the moment. Establishing that priority helps to focus the assessment of requests through qualifying questions: 1. Nice-to-have or blocker: How urgent is the request? 2. Alignment: How on-topic is the request with respect to what the team/company decided was a priority? 3. Opportunity cos…
Platform teams often fire-fight, thinking their goal is solving all support requests.
It's not.
The goal is helping the business make more money.
Don’t fall for the Efficiency Paradox—get clear on your priorities.
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Read more on substack.com/home/post/p-...
You don't have time to overthink every decision. It's easy to get caught up in analysis-paralysis: you know your decisions matter, so you need to choose wisely. You don't want your team to suffer because of you, especially if you went too fast. The truth is, we all make mistakes and no one works in a perfect environment. Great decisions come down to understanding context and managing trade-offs. Context Is Everything Decisions that work in one situation can fail in another. For example, being scrappy like a startup won't transfer well to a more mature company that must adhere to standards. Failing to account for timing, resources, or stakeholder needs only leads to poor outcomes. Understanding the context brings the necessary nuance to put best practices in perspective. Perhaps better practices is more accurate—the context decides whether to put them to good use or not. Every Decision Has Trade-Offs When you say yes, you say no. Choosing one path means giving up another. The mistake is ignoring what you’re sacrificing. It's a lot better to choose the problem you would rather deal with than to leave it up to chance. Making great decisions is about finding the best compromise. Adaptability Beats Certainty Overcommitting to a rigid plan ignores how quickly contexts can shift. Market conditions change, new disruptive tech emerges, people come and go. We can't predict the future and always operate with incomplete information, and so it is futile to treat any decision as final. It's always a good idea to be receptive to feedback and adapt your course midway—you might just hit a wall instead. Successful companies know they must pivot to survive. Great leadership isn’t about always being right. It’s about making the best choice in the moment and being willing to course-correct when presented with new information.
Decision-Making 101.
Over the past 2 years, I have made countless decisions, big and small, on behalf of my team.
Have I always been right? No.
But these 3 realizations have always helped me beat indecisiveness:
If you want your manager to advocate for your promotion, give them the tools to make the case. Document Your Wins Keep a running list of accomplishments. I call it a Brag Document. Focus on measurable outcomes like improving efficiency by 20% or launching a feature that drove a 15% increase in user engagement. But make sure your work contributed significantly to those, or there will be pushback. Managers need concrete examples to back you up: for performance reviews, for promotion committees, to negotiate salary raises on your behalf. Align Your Work with Team Goals Make sure your contributions directly support your team or company’s objectives. And not in some distant interpretation of what that means. There's nothing worse for a manager to have to explain why you've been seemingly going off course for the last quarter despite their attempts to keep you focused on the mission. Tie your impact to big-picture goals like meeting KPIs or supporting strategic initiatives. Communicate Proactively Don’t assume your work speaks for itself. Share updates during team meetings or in one-on-ones. Highlight challenges you’ve overcome, solutions you’ve implemented, and results you’ve delivered. Your manager is not omniscient. It's ultimately your responsibility to market for yourself—don't leave your career progression solely up to your manager du jour. Be Clear About Your Aspirations Your manager isn’t a mind reader—certainly I'm not! If you’re aiming for a promotion, say so. On the next one-on-one, you could then discuss what’s required to get there and request regular feedback on how you’re progressing. It gives you a common objective to pursue. Your manager might then just give you more opportunities to build that track record. Build Relationships Across Teams When others recognize your contributions, it strengthens your manager’s case. Collaborate effectively with colleagues and build a reputation as someone who adds value beyond your immediate role. Mentor ot…
Want your manager to advocate for you? Here's what you need to do:
• Document your wins
• Align your work with team goals
• Communicate proactively
• Be clear about your aspirations
• Build relationships across teams
• Support your manager's goals
More on my Substack substack.com/inbox/post/1...
It all started when my team and I decided to introduce an office hour while Covid was still raging. I knew some colleagues felt isolated. "What if we could alleviate that feeling by inviting all frontend engineers to come and talk about anything?", I thought. And so, every Wednesday at 1pm, the frontend platform team hopped on a Zoom call. Except these people we tried to help never joined. But others did, thankfully—and the Web Open Hour still lives on to this day. It's evolved over time, but the sense of community we managed to foster across siloed frontend teams has been invaluable. In particular, I never anticipated these amazing benefits as we got started: 1. You get a stage to share your ideas and get feedback. Platform teams often risk working on the wrong thing. Instead of talking to their customers, they double-down on solving sometimes imaginary problems, and with tech, always more tech! And that leaves everyone frustrated. Wasted resources for the business, wasted time for the platform engineers, inadequate support for product teams. With the Open Hour, we suddenly had an audience with our customers who helped us validate and refine our ideas before we invested any time in them. 2. You break the silos and enable smoother knowledge sharing. As a platform team, chances are you're serving a wide array of teams. Each has their own unique challenges, but because they interface with you, they share some similar issues that your team is tasked to solve. When siloed teams have a forum to discuss their problems, suddenly team A comes forward with a solution because they solved team B's problem last quarter. The platform team can just quietly take notes. And discover what solutions they should scale across the company. 3. You earn trust and authority. Week after week, let the mere exposure effect do the work. Read the rest on https://substack.com/inbox/post/155292055
3 Unexpected Benefits Platform Teams Can Unlock When Building A Supportive Community (And Amplify Their Impact)
1. get a stage to share your ideas and get feedback
2. break the silos and enable smoother knowledge sharing
3. earn trust and authority
Check the full post on my Substack: open.substack.com/pub/robincsl...
I’m not here to be a gatekeeper. But there are wrong reasons to believe that becoming a manager is the natural progression in everyone's career. It is hard. And yes, it really is a different job. For months and to this day, I have struggled to adapt to these 3 sobering "perks" of being a manager. 1. The feedback loop slows down dramatically No more TDD for you. All that fast-paced feedback from your code editors and tools, yeah, you don't get any of that as a manager. Sure, you can see your team's faces on team meetings or during one-on-one's. But the changes triggered by your leadership and feedback take time to really show up. If they do. Your growth seems to slow down. Gauging your success becomes difficult, so you cannot really understand what you should do better. Despite being busy with seemingly everything, you often feel like you got nothing done that day. When becoming a manager, you moved your concerns from 2-week sprints to quarters, if not semesters or years. 2. It can be lonely As a manager, you need to make lots of decisions. Some can be quite sensitive and delicate, so you can't discuss them with many folks. You can feel misunderstood when you can't share the whole context. And people won't always agree with you. People might even be mad at you sometimes. Don't start thinking that people pleasing will make that go away. It's only going to make matters worse. That feeling of isolation comes with the package, unfortunately. Not knowing if you're going in the right direction, without express support from everyone—that will test your character. 3. You are bound to be distracted Gone are the days when you can just "flow" through your tasks. All these meetings in your calendar: sore reminders of all the different situations you must tend to; just as many opportunities for you to absorb everybody else's problems and emotions. Leaving so few hours to focus and think. This results in feeling everywhere and nowhere at the same time, carrying a bl…
3 harsh realities managers deal with that aspiring managers should really think twice about before making the jump
1. The feedback loop slows down, like a lot
2. You will feel alone (forever alone)
3. Distractions, distractions everywhere
When I became a manager, my calendar suddenly filled up with meetings. One-on-one's, team plannings, initiative syncs, staff meetings, committees, retros. These became overwhelming and frustrating if nothing really happened beyond talk. I noticed these 5 red flags that set managers (or myself!) up for failure when organising and hosting meetings. Red Flag #1: There is no agenda. When a meeting has no agenda, it has no purpose—we can always talk about the weather, but that's not really why we're here. When a meeting has no agenda, it has no structure—it invites random topics and makes your life harder to extract signal from noise. When a meeting has no agenda, it has no context—setting the scene for what is about to be discussed allows participants to prepare and think ahead of time. Spontaneous thoughts and ideas aren't always the most valuable. Red Flag #2: The invite list is (too) large. Before someone told me, I never realised that meetings are expensive. The more participants, the more senior, the more well-paid they are, the more you need to think twice about organising that meeting. It's not just one hour. It's one hour times the number of folks you invited. It's one hour times the number of folks you invited times their hourly rate. Think about that for one second! (Maybe there should be a Google Calendar extension to show the price tag.) If you find yourself inviting everyone, it's unlikely you will accomplish anything specific. Red Flag #3: Some folks don't say anything. We've all seen these people who just sit quietly in a meeting. Maybe they should never be there in the first place. Or they're killing time to get through their 9-5. More likely yet, they just never got the chance to speak because one or two individuals stole the show. This is your meeting. You moderate it. Pay attention and invite every participant to speak, or you might be missing out on their crucial point of view. Red Flag #4: You don't take notes. "Yeah, it was a great …
5 red flags when managers organize meetings
1. There is no agenda
2. The invite list is (too) large
3. Some folks don't say anything
4. They don't take notes
5. There are no action items
In seven years as a software developer, three pieces of advice have significantly shaped my career. They've pushed me past self-limiting beliefs and spurred me to action—from starting to write online to advocating for myself. Do what's best for you – Joshua Crass At my first startup job, this was Josh's constant refrain when I asked about our dwindling runway. It felt like a cop-out from someone whose stories of Google and Facebook's early days had always been so inspiring. How could such simple advice come from such an accomplished manager? As a junior, it left me all the more confused. Months later, I understood: Josh wasn't being lazy—he was teaching me to take ownership of my career. To take responsibility for what's next. Not to stay helpless. To take risks. Doing what's best for yourself isn't selfish—it's ensuring your path aligns with your goals rather than letting circumstances or others choose your direction. The alternative might very well be burnout. Better done than perfect – Michal Sänger I used to write mathematical proofs for my PhD. Every detail had to be correct or the whole result might go straight to the bin. Done meant perfect. Michal just wanted things to get done. He knew that businesses do not care about diminishing returns. Startups especially need to rapidly experiment to find product market fit and bring in revenue. Agonising over the perfect solution was counterproductive. What's more, I later realised there are no perfect solutions. It's always a question of trade-offs. Context is key. The mantra went: 1. Make it work. 2. Make it right, if necessary. 3. Make it fast, when it matters. It's easy to miss business realities when we're deep in the code. You can learn so much on the Internet for the low, low price of your Ego – Shawn Wang People cannot help themselves but correct you when you're wrong. Not because they're bad people, mind you. It's in fact because people love to help. So when you stop defending your ego so f…
Here are 3 pieces of advice that defined my early career as a developer
1. Do what's best for you
2. Better done than perfect
3. Learn in public
In this new AI era, avoiding the hard problems will kill your career before it starts. Your growth trajectory depends largely on how you approach challenges. In my journey from junior to staff engineer over 4 years, I discovered that actively seeking out the problems others avoided became my secret weapon. This approach works because of the 3 following key benefits: Benefit 1: It Demonstrates Intrinsic Motivation When you consistently tackle challenging problems that others avoid, you demonstrate something far more valuable than just the ability to 'take one for the team'. Your internal drive to make meaningful contributions, regardless of the task's appeal, signals that you're not focused on just climbing the career ladder. Impact is what you care about. Not solving tickets. You want to make a difference and people respect that. Benefit 2: It Develops Valuable Problem-Solving Skills Unwanted tasks are avoided for a reason—and therein lies their hidden value. Legacy systems? Messy requirements? Debugging nightmares? The more diverse, the better. Solving any of these builds skills others lack. Over time, these compound to give you a unique edge. The beauty of it? There is no competition: they're yours for the taking. Benefit 3: It Builds a Great Track Record You won't always succeed. But at the start, expectations are low anyway. Any win will be a great achievement. This track record will slowly transform how colleagues and leaders view you. You become known as the developer who can be trusted with critical challenges—not just because of your technical expertise, but because you've repeatedly shown judgment in navigating complex situations. Your diverse experience handling different types of problems makes you particularly valuable in senior and leadership roles. People will want you on their teams. So what's the hard problem you've been avoiding? Start there.
Do the work no one wants to do
During my PhD, I completely bombed a presentation at the maths postgraduate seminar. My slides were half-baked, my delivery lazy and incomplete. The blank stares looking down on me in the amphitheatre were enough of a hint that I had just made a fool of myself. No one needed to make fun of me—I knew I’d messed up. That experience taught me a lot about public speaking. I've tried new approaches for my presentations since, and two tips have always served me well: Tip #1: Practice sessions are a must. No matter how prepared you feel, always do a dry run. Mistakes are cheaper in practice than in the real thing. A quick practice session reveals clunky transitions between slides, helps refine your words, and breaks that slide-reading habit. Organizing one is easy: Find your audience: friends, colleagues, family, even pets. Start a stopwatch. Run through the presentation. Stop the stopwatch. Afterwards, get feedback. Did you go too long? Did the points land? Were people engaged all the way throughout? Write down improvement ideas, fix typos, and tighten your delivery. Tip #2: Focus on ONE goal. A good presentation has a clear, singular objective. Stripping away everything else isn't just about keeping things simple—it's about identifying what truly matters to your audience. Each slide, each point should serve that core message, building towards greater impact. What’s the key takeaway for your audience? Remember, they might be tired, distracted, or just digesting lunch. Make their lives easy—keep the main idea front and center. As an example, in a work presentation, I ended with this cheesy rhyme: If you hate flying blind, keep the quota in mind. Cheesy? Yes. Memorable? Absolutely. Since then, that call-to-action has become my signature for related communications. Sure, I had more to share, but I focused on the one idea that mattered most. Public speaking takes practice. Assembling slides takes time. But now, years after that day in t…
During my PhD, I completely bombed a presentation. The blank stares said it all.
Since then, 2 tips stuck with me:
1. practice! run through the presentation, get feedback, refine.
2. focus on ONE goal. Strip the rest.
In my experience, juniors are the best way to infuse new energy in a senior-dominant team. After some time, you see, seniors become quite comfortable in their ways. And they don't want the burden to onboard a junior. It will slow them down, they say. They're not wrong. Welcoming juniors has a cost on productivity. But here are 3 reasons why I believe hiring hungry juniors is still a great move anyway: Reason #1: It creates mentorship opportunities. Juniors shouldn't be left to their own devices. It's your job to invest in their growth as fast as possible. To that end, I would ask a senior to officially mentor the junior and encourage them to have weekly one-to-one meetings. This has several benefits: The junior spends more time doing instead of wondering. They know who to ask. And there is always a concrete time and space to go over more complex questions. The senior reflects on the team's ways of working and setup when faced with the junior's questions. Deeply-held assumptions cannot hide anymore. They must understand better to explain well. This mentoring nurtures the growth of both junior and senior. When one teaches, two learn. (And it always looks good in performance reviews and promotions!) Reason #2: It challenges the status quo. Juniors bring fresh eyes to old problems and situations. They don't have the curse of knowledge. They know that they don't know. Because they're hungry and want to understand it all, they're not afraid to ask. And so they fuzzy-find all sorts of issues that seniors would gloss over and yet struggle to explain convincingly. The documentation sees lots of improvements and updates. The new perspectives open doors to new solutions. Some things which were too complex get simplified. None of this would have happened without a junior poking everywhere. Reason #3: It brings a lot of satisfaction The delayed feedback loop is really unsettling as a new manager. But seeing someone put in the work and apply your hard-earne…
3 Reasons Tech Leads Should Want Hungry Juniors On Their Teams
* It creates mentorship opportunities (for seniors to grow)
* It challenges the status quo (for new solutions to emerge)
* It brings a lot of satisfaction (for managers to stay motivated)
Allow me to let you in on a little secret: people with a growth mindset crave feedback. They want to feel considered. They want you to notice they've gone the extra mile. They want their progress to be acknowledged. Heck, I want that too. Of course, they also want to know when they've gone off course, done something they should have done better or completely missed the mark. Giving feedback is both a manager's super-power and duty. There is an art to doing it in the kindest way. Always frame the discussion as a growth opportunity: you genuinely want what's best for them and their career; you just noticed something and want to help them. Here are 3 steps to follow when providing feedback: Understand the context. Any piece of feedback must start with establishing the context for the discussion to follow to be fruitful. It might even stop there if you somehow misread the situation. For example, you could go through the situation together, ask questions about different aspects and finally give some additional information that was missing. Set clear expectations. Based on that exploration of the situation, the reason for this feedback session might already be clear. There is no room for vagueness however: make sure to state precisely what the issue was, in a way that is non-judgemental and easy to understand. That goes for both positive and negative feedback. Give action steps. To give that feedback the best chance of enabling positive change, you need action steps. They need to either fix the original issue, reinforce the positive behaviour, or become a practice opportunity for the expectations set above. With these steps, your feedback becomes more than just words. It drives positive change, reinforces trust and is another proof of the leader you strive to be. Context. Expectations. Actions. That's all there is to it.
3 Steps to Give Great Feedback to Grow your Team
With these steps, your feedback becomes more than just words. It drives positive change, reinforces trust and is another proof of the leader you strive to be.
Context. Expectations. Actions.
That's all there is to it.
"I don't want to demotivate the team by giving them that reality check" "I don't want to discourage my team member by having that difficult chat" You're a good person and you don't ever want to make anyone feel bad. Like everybody else, you crave connection over conflict. And so you're nice. And that sets you up for failure. Don't be nice. Be kind. When you become a manager, you don't sign up for a popularity contest. It's not about people liking you. It's not even about you. It's about providing the best support to your coworkers for them to do their best work. Sometimes, they don't see the bigger picture. Or they work on the wrong thing. Or they just royally fuck up. It's your job to provide feedback to them. It takes courage to go into these more difficult conversations. There is a cost to being nice: By being nice, you're denying your coworkers an incredible growth opportunity. By being nice, you're just prioritizing your short-term comfort over your own long-term growth too. It's only a matter of time people realise you have no skin in the game. That lack of honesty will not earn respect and people won't think of you as a leader. Be kind instead.
1 Mistake to Avoid as a New Manager: Why Being Nice Sets You Up For Failure
When you become a manager, you don't sign up for a popularity contest. It's not about people liking you. It's not even about you.
Being nice sets you up for failure.
Be kind instead.
Why I'm Starting (again) to Write Online Robin Cussol I recently signed up for Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole's cohort-based course, Ship 30 for 30. After a silent 2024, time to hit publish again! Here are a few reasons why: Provide better value. I want to understand what ideas and experiences I have that resonate with people so that I may focus on those. Reflect and grow. Through building this writing habit, I will create time and space to pause and think, go from passive consumer to active creator. Inspire people. A few people wrote to me after they found my origin story on how I went from PhD to JavaScript developer; it felt great to connect with folks in a similar situation and help them choose their path through sharing my experience and tips. Over the next 30 days, I plan on writing about my frontend platform know-how, about the journey from individual contributor to manager, and what it means to be a team lead in a tech company. Join me on this adventure—and let me know if you have any questions along the way! (I'm not that famous yet that I wouldn't be able to answer all of them!) I'm truly excited to start sharing what I know online. Let's make 2025 the year of writing. @RobinCsl - robincussol.com
I recently signed up for Dickie Bush & Nicolas Cole's cohort-based course, Ship 30 for 30 🚢.
Let's make 2025 the year of writing!
Definitely.
Hopefully they get proper mentoring and continuous feedback at their job or otherwise that they realize it fast enough.
Or maybe AI tools will still improve and they’ll never need to realize it.
Really liked that post from @addyosmani.bsky.social
addyo.substack.com/p/the-70-pro...
I have also seen juniors relying on AI tools as a mental shortcut, so that they don’t actually learn anything, don’t think about the problem they want to solve, and trust the outputs way too much without any critical thinking.
It just gives them a false sense of being productive and efficient.
