Ask HN: How to speak like a leader, not like an engineer? - <AUTHOR> 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. <comment><USER3> 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.

<comment><USER4> 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.

<comment><USER5> 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 - <USER2> 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.

<comment><USER6> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> 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.

<comment><USER8> In short when communicating with anyone outside of engineering, figure out what they care about and speak to that.

<comment><USER9> 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.

<comment><USER8> Yep! I agree as well, the less you speak, the more you listen, the better!

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> 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.

<comment><USER11> > 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.

<comment><USER12> 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?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> 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.

<comment><USER14> 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.

<comment><USER15> 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.

<comment><USER16> +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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> 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.

<comment><USER17> > 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?

<comment><USER5> "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 _______"

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> 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.

<comment><USER19> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER20> 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!

<comment><USER21> Appreciated this — thank you!

<comment><USER20> 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.

<comment><USER22> 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

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> 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)

<comment><USER10> But also don't overdo it. People can tell when you're just parroting the countless business/persuasion books.

<comment><USER24> 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.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> 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.

<comment><USER26> This is just bad advice. Don't listen to this guy.

<comment><USER27> Honestly, it's not even wrong.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> 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.

<comment><USER29> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> 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.

</comment><comment><USER31> 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.

</comment><comment><USER32> 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"

</comment><comment><USER33> 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.

</comment><comment><USER34> 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)

</comment><comment><USER35> 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...

</comment><comment><USER36> 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.

</comment><comment><USER37> "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)

</comment><comment><USER38> 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.

<comment><USER39> I'll second 'extreme ownership'

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

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> 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.

</comment><comment><USER41> 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.

</comment><comment><USER42> 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.

</comment><comment><USER43> 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.

<comment><USER44> brilliant analogy

</comment></comment><comment><USER45> 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.

</comment><comment><USER46> 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?

<comment><AUTHOR> 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.

<comment><USER46> 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?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> 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)

</comment><comment><USER48> 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.

<comment><USER49> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER50> 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!

</comment><comment><USER51> > 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.

</comment><comment><USER52> 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).

</comment><comment><USER53> He doesn't sound like much of a mentor. Unstructured criticism just reduces morale amongst rank and file when the message is constantly berating.

</comment><comment><USER54> 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.

</comment><comment><USER55> 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...

<comment><AUTHOR> Yes, he likes to listen to solutions rather than teams problems/worries. Good advice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER56> 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.

</comment><comment><USER57> 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.

</comment><comment><USER58> 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).

</comment><comment><USER59> 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

</comment><comment><USER60> 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.

</comment><comment><USER61> 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!

<comment><USER62> > 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER63> 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.

</comment><comment><USER64> 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.

</comment><comment><USER65> > 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.

</comment><comment><USER66> 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!

</comment><comment><USER67> 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.

</comment><comment><USER68> 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.

</comment><comment><USER69> 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.

</comment><comment><USER70> 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 :)

</comment><comment><USER71> 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)

</comment><comment><USER72> 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.

</comment><comment><USER73> 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.

</comment><comment><USER74> 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.

<comment><USER75> 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?

</comment></comment><comment><USER76> 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.

</comment><comment><USER77> 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.

</comment><comment><USER78> 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.

</comment><comment><USER79> 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.

</comment><comment><USER80> 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.

</comment><comment><USER81> 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.

</comment><comment><USER82> 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.

</comment><comment><USER79> 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.

</comment><comment><USER83> 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.

</comment><comment><USER84> 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.

</comment><comment><USER85> 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.

</comment><comment><USER86> 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.

</comment><comment> 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)

</comment><comment><USER87> Think about your people first and foremost.

</comment><comment><USER88> 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)

</comment><comment><USER89> 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.

</comment><comment><USER90> 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.

</comment><comment><USER91> 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.

<comment><USER92> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> 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.

</comment><comment><USER94> 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

</comment><comment><USER95> 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.

<comment><USER96> 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.

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> 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.

</comment><comment><USER98> 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

</comment><comment><USER99> 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/)

</comment><comment><USER100> Talk like [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_engineering](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sales_engineering)

</comment><comment><USER101> 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.

</comment><comment><USER102> 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.

</comment><comment><USER103> 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.

</comment><comment><USER104> Ask your manager to send you to this: [http://coleadership.com](http://coleadership.com)

</comment><comment><USER105> 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!

</comment><comment><USER106> Keep in mind that being a manager is a different career. You'll have different objectives and need different skills.

</comment><comment><USER97> I'd recommend a year of Toastmasters. Both the communication and leadership track will help immensely.

</comment><comment><USER107> Learn about the rhetorical triangle, especially its ethos and pathos aspects.

</comment><comment><USER108> Watch Movies and channel your favorite Monologues.

</comment><comment><USER109> Just pay the advice forward. Tell everyone you're managing "don't [talk|act] like a(n) [job title], [talk|act] like a leader".

</comment><comment><USER110> Do you mean the CTO position?

</comment><comment> 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!

</comment><comment><USER111> _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.

</comment><comment><USER112> 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.

<comment> 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)

</comment></comment><comment><USER113> a leader would ask for clarification, so there's always that.

</comment><comment><USER114> Great way to immediately lose credibility.

</comment><comment><USER115> 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.

<comment><USER99> 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.

<comment><USER38> 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?

<comment><USER99> 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.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER116> Repeat the name of the person you're talking to frequently, and lie a lot.

<comment><USER117> So _that_ 's where that "Tim Apple" thing came from! That's genius - only a true leader could have thought of it!</comment></comment>


Cable customers dropping at record pace. See you soon, Dr. Death? - <AUTHOR> http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/10/cable-tv-satellite-loses-subscribers_n_923034.html

<comment><AUTHOR> I agree with Mark Cuban that it will be a few years before we see a realistic alternative to our traditional distribution of content. (cable, satellite)

Large scale, streaming video on the web is so much more pricey when you look at the numbers (cost of generating 1 mill views online VS 1 mill views on a cable or satellite network)</comment>


Farmers Fight John Deere over Who Gets to Fix an $800k Tractor - <AUTHOR> https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-03-05/farmers-fight-john-deere-over-who-gets-to-fix-an-800-000-tractor <comment><USER2> A big part of this is the result of manufacturers trying to protect the profits of themselves and their dealer networks.

Dealer network profit is increasingly reliant and dependent on service income.

So attempts to lock in serviceability are to be expected.

I wonder if manufacturers will consider and experiment with a platform approach?

Perhaps along the lines of Salesforce, Xero, Apple App Store.

And take a cut of the ecosystem income.

<comment><USER3> Personal conspiracy theory:

If you're JD what you _really_ want is to get a cut of revenue generated using the equipment. Like the copier market, all run on "clicks". Service is more or less free (and responsive), because if you're not harvesting they're not earning.

I'm inclined to believe that obsession with telemetry collected is partly for service, partly for sales, but also to support future "pay per unit processed" contracts and business models.

Hackable tractors undermine the nascent "farm equipment as a service" business model.

<comment><USER4> Might be what they are trying to do, but I feel like few industries have managed to make that happen.

With the exception of payment processing, I feel like most people avoid deals that try to take a cut of revenue like the plague. I know I do.

<comment><USER5> Think aircraft engine is closer to the farmer/JD relationship.

Airlines don't buy engines but rent thrust/hours. A little more explanation [https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8270/what-is- th...](https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/8270/what-is-the-future- of-manufacturer-independent-jet-engine-maintenance-repair-and/8283#8283)

<comment><USER6> Seems more like it should be more like the CNC machines at the shop I was at and the manufacturer. The price point is the same for the machines(around half a million), we were heavily encouraged to use their customer service and support, but we could work on, modify and repair our own machines as we saw fit, order parts from whoever we wanted and have any technicians we wanted work on the machines.

The machines were online and could be accessed by the manufacturer but were only accessed during customer support calls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> HN previously on tractor DRM:

1 day ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22482598](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22482598)

2 years ago: [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13925994)

</comment><comment><USER8> A big part of this is the complexity of the project. There are a dozen sensitive control systems in a modern tractor, working in concert. An operating tractor is several tons of steel with dozens of large sharp blades whirling and cutting. Do something wrong and, unlike a Tesla which might crash and kill you, these things can take out an elementary school.

<comment><USER9> Are they driverless?

<comment><USER8> Like Tesla, supposed to have an operator monitoring at all times. Who easily gets bored and watches movies on their phone.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> possibly a market for replacing this software with open source versions?

<comment><USER11> Pretty unlikely. Even replacing car ECUs is not something popularly done with open source at this point, despite them being much, much more prevalent than farm equipment.

I'm sure many farmers would love it if there was an open source firmware alternative, but that's about as likely as an open source firmware being developed for home microwaves. There's interest, but it's not widespread enough that someone is going to do it well enough to make it worthwhile.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> The primary drivers of the locking down of software capabilities of tractors came down to emissions, if I recall correctly. Manufacturers are told their Ag equipment must reach certain goals in terms of output of waste gases which requires rather tight control of the combustion process. The issue I see though, is that upon being given that inch of latitude, Deere took a mile by using that as a likely excuse to enforce things in software like DRM that gimps the power output of the engine without paying a premium fee. Figure out a way to get the same results with Free, open source software, and generally speaking most problems will go away as long as you're willing to actually operate the thing and not relying on their drive-by-GPS software to do the work for you.

While tractors are undeniably complex mechanical devices, and always have been, it's only with the addition of proprietary software in the current rent- seeking happy buisness environment that these anti-user practices have become possible. Break the dependence on the software, and you should be good to go.

Though that "break the dependence" is doing a lot of heavy lifting there. Control software is no joke; but if anywhere would be the place to start hacking an open-replacement together, at equipment would be the place to start. Low speed, the operator is safely ensconced away from the whirly bits, and most importantly, low machine density.

If I had a tractor no one else was using; heck, I might just have basically tried to create the statechart and kludge together something that'd end up working.

Off the top of my head the project would require

A)breakdown of the PCB's of the ECU/BCU/ACU(Engine/Body/Accessory Control Units). These are assumed parts, I haven't seen a block diagram; but the gist is, if there is a PCB, a schematic will need to be inferred from it. You don't need to downright copy it, but you do need to make sure you account for every sensor. Emissions controls are no joke.

B) Experimentally, or through consultation of regulations, figure out the targets Deere has to hit to meet with regulations. You already know the engine and emission system itself is capable of hitting it, you just need to derive the parameters. A dyno and somebody experienced in the art of ECU tuning and some experimentation with different mappings should eventually find you converging on Deere's settings.

C)Analyze all signalling between components. This is where things get tricky. If it's just in the clear CAN bus style, you can tap the lines to build up your statecharts. If they've gone and thrown a bunch of encryption/obfuscation into the mix, and there's no way to trivially extract the keys from the hardware, you at least get an idea of what patterning is present, which can be enough to at least give you a sense of direction to follow.

One'd best set their goals on replacing the ECU firmware first and foremost, but I'm guessing there's probably some dependence of the control unit for the accessories on seeing a John Deere(TM) ECU that'll quickly cascade the scope. I couldn't imagine so many getting irritated by this otherwise.

I wouldn't be out or willing to replicate their auto-GPS drive features. Those are innovative enough I'm willing to leave them with a pass on it. The fundamental operation/repair of the tractor being locked out though is beyond justifiable. It'd be a multi-year endeavor for someone alone assuming enough funding to keep them chugging along with working on the project as a day job as a computer scientist with a rather Jack-of-all-Trades approach; throw in a competent EE and ME, and you might get something sooner. The scope would initially only cover a single tractor type, but once the process has been refined, it could be expanded to other models given that once you find something that works, you tend to stick with it.

All of this would of course carry an absurdly high risk of being sued most likely. They'd make the argument we're trying to copy their design. One'd have to know a skilled enough lawyer to be able to navigate the morass to ensure it was clear in court that all that was going on would be an independent reformulation of software that meets the same physical output parameters that just happens to line up with John Deere's tractors. Similar to how GNU Octave is a functional clone of MATLAB.

<comment><USER11> >The primary drivers of the locking down of software capabilities of tractors came down to emissions, if I recall correctly.

No, the primary driver of locking down who can repair the entire piece of equipment is protection of profits by the manufacturer and dealer.

Emissions are controlled by only a small part of the system and do not justify a total lock down, nor refusal to give information to the equipment owners, because once the equipment is sold, responsibility for emissions no longer rests with the manufacturer, it rests with the owner, at least in the US.</comment></comment>


China has cornered the global market for vitamins (2007) - <AUTHOR> https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-world/world/article24464704.html <comment><AUTHOR> The key line:

 _If you pop a vitamin C tablet in your mouth, it 's a good bet it came from China. Indeed, many of the world's vitamins are now made in China._

 _In less than a decade, China has captured 90 percent of the U.S. market for vitamin C, driving almost everyone else out of business._</comment>