#22 | Sunday reads for EMs | Engineering Manager Tools

👋 Hey, it’s Stephane. This is a new series in which every Sunday I share with you my favourite reads of the week. To accelerate your growth see: The EM’s Field Guide | CodeCrafters | Get Hired as an EM | 1:1 Coaching

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Strategy, not self-expression: How to decide what to say when giving feedback

tl;dr: Before giving feedback, ask yourself “Is this strategy or self-expression?” Strategy means only saying the 10% that will actually change behavior, everything else (venting, proving you’re right, making them feel remorse) goes in the self-expression bucket. Mentally forgive the person first, identify what will motivate them specifically, then say only what advances behavior change.

Good engineering management is a fad

tl;dr: The industry’s definition of “good leadership” shifts every few years based on business realities, but each shift gets wrapped in a morality tale to make it feel principled. Smart managers ignore the fads and develop 8 foundational skills across two buckets: core skills (execution, team building, ownership, alignment) that get you in the door, and growth skills (taste, clarity, navigating ambiguity, working across timescales) that determine how far you go. You need to build broad competence across all eight so you survive the next inevitable industry pivot.

Become the Consequence

tl;dr: When driving organizational change as a senior leader, you can’t delegate strategy - you explain it loudly and repeatedly, then become the accountability mechanism yourself. Set the goal and justify why it matters, but don’t prescribe how to achieve it; instead, create specific review moments where teams bring their proposals and you iterate together.

How to run exceptional 1:1s for Engineers

tl;dr: Most 1:1s fail because they’re treated as status updates instead of relationship accelerators. The meeting exists for stuff that doesn’t fit anywhere else (career growth, team dynamics, blockers). Engineers should own the agenda and talk 70% of the time, while managers coach rather than solve, using questions like “What have you already tried?” to build decision-makers instead of dependencies.

Take-Home Exercises

tl;dr: Effective take-home coding exercises assess both ability and interest by being specific, limited in scope, and transparent about judging criteria upfront. The real signal isn’t just working code - it’s taste and knowing where to stop: simpler code is better than clever code, fewer dependencies matter, and great candidates surprise you with polish you didn’t ask for. In the AI era, ask candidates to disclose what models they used and plan for in-person pairing sessions to discuss their work; the goal is honesty about how people will actually get stuff done at work.

Positraction

tl;dr: Hiring only people who agree with your current approach creates a monoculture that can’t evolve when conditions change, while hiring people too far apart produces lots of motion but no progress. The sweet spot is “positraction” - enough difference to challenge assumptions but enough alignment to maintain momentum, mixing not just ideologies but life stages, backgrounds, and cultures.