How To Manage Yourself As An Engineering Manager

I believe a lot of your success as an engineering manager (EM) depends on the team you build.

But, as the saying goes: “How can you manage others if you can’t manage yourself?” 

The role can be overwhelming, especially at first, and even more so if you’ve recently transitioned from being an engineer. Becoming an EM throws a whole world of different challenges at you, such as:

• Managing people
• Having larger responsibilities 
• Dealing with multiple demands
• Context switching
• Different expectations
• Working with various groups, teams, and stakeholders
• Higher stress levels
• And managing a to-do list that grows exponentially

Luckily, there are some practical strategies you can put in place to help. These range from fine-tuning your management style to utilizing tools to keep you on track. 

Starting the role is a massive learning curve, you’ll make mistakes – that’s okay, we all do. These strategies have all worked for me. They may or may not for you, but they’re worth a try. 

So, here are my tips on how to start managing yourself. I truly hope they help.

A quick note about this post

Every section contains a link to a more detailed exploration of its content. You can read each section in this post and come away with something valuable. But if you’d like more, you can find it through those links. 

1 - How to manage your time and energy

First and foremost, you have to look after yourself. If you push yourself and continually work excessive hours, it will only lead to:

• Overwhelm
• Poor performance
• Health problems
• Relationship (work and personal) problems
• And burnout

It’s easy, especially when we start out as EMs, to fall into the Atlas complex. Like the Titan, Atlas, we think everything rests on our shoulders and that the successes and failures of everyone else are entirely dependent on us.  

Instead of taking on everything ourselves, we need to look to our teams for support. After all, a big part of management is doing “nothing.” And your metrics of success aren’t simply dependent on you but also on your team’s success. 

So, don’t feel guilty because you don’t have anything to “show” for how busy you’ve been. Meetings, coaching, and team environment are part of your role. The mindset of, “I haven’t done anything today because I’ve been in meetings,” is a phantom draw on your energy. As is avoiding big tasks you don’t want to do (like performance improvement plans) or letting all the small tasks stack up.   

The EM role is a marathon, not a sprint, and we need all our energy to perform well. The finish line of 6 pm Friday is an imaginary one. So, instead of watching the clock, pay attention to your energy levels. If you are:

• Losing focus
• Making mistakes
• And generally struggling 

It’s probably a sign you need to rest and restore. Remember, the world won’t come crashing down if you take some time to recharge. What will happen, though, is that you’ll end up performing better in your role than had you pushed through your limits. 

2 - How to manage stress

EMs are bombarded with: 

• Requests
• Emails
• Reminders
• Too much information
• Problems
• Constant context switching
• And more

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with the stress of trying to manage all of it. For many, this issue leads to the same negative outcomes mentioned in the previous section, but there is a solution, and the first part is simply taking steps to handle the stress.

You can’t avoid stress completely, and fighting against it only ends up causing more. So, what’s the alternative? Knowing that it’s part of your job and staying aware of your triggers. Using this information, you can put measures in place to mitigate or even eliminate at least some of your stress.

One such technique is pausing and removing yourself from the situation causing this for you. For example, you can:

• Go for a walk
• Do breathing exercises or mindfulness techniques
• Have a non-work-related conversation with someone
• Or have a drink of water or a hot drink

Each of these strategies allows your brain to slow down, you to get your breath back, and calm down any anxiety you’re feeling.

Once you’ve had some time to recalibrate, you can focus on what was causing you stress and work out ways to deal with it. This may involve prioritizing or delegating tasks. At the very least, a plan of action or direction can help. Either way, remember to communicate these changes to any others involved.    

For example, if you have to reschedule a meeting, contact the participants straight away and explain. Avoiding people because you’re worried about what they’ll say or think will actually cause you more stress. Ultimately, most people are understanding, so give them a chance to be.

Finally, stop self-shaming. It’s okay to not be perfect and fall short sometimes. You are only human, after all. 

3 - How to stay in control of yourself

Sometimes, when we’re dealing with overwhelm, stress, and the weight of our job, we forget ourselves and let our emotions dictate our actions. Unfortunately, as you may have experienced yourself, this can have disastrous ramifications.

No team wants to be led by the Gordon Ramsay of engineering managers. It’s amusing on TV, but definitely not in the workplace. When managers lose their temper, are volatile, and scream and shout, it only leads to:

• A negative reputation
• Poor team culture
• Bad decision-making 
• And loss of:
  • Respect
  • Authority
  • And possibly even their job 

We’ve all lost control at some point, though – it’s just part of being human. And I understand how easy it can be, especially when you’re frustrated, disappointed, or overwhelmed. But you do have ways to stay in control. 

Here’s what I do:

• Think before you speak: Most situations don’t require an immediate response. Take the time to think and process before you say something.
• Step away: This is one of the most effective ways you can use to regain composure. Remove yourself (temporarily) from whatever is causing your emotions to flare.
• Change communication: If you find yourself in a heated meeting, suggest a break and to carry on the conversation async after people have had to think and calm down.
• Use your emotional intelligence: This works in two ways. First, be self-aware and notice your triggers, then work to overcome them. Second, use your empathy to understand other people’s standpoints and the emotions that might be driving their actions. 

4 - How to set boundaries

Part of looking after yourself, managing stress, and controlling your emotions is in the boundaries you set at work. But this is often a very difficult task. Why? Because a lot of people believe that setting boundaries and saying no will lead to:

• Others not liking them
• Potential conflicts
• And people thinking they can’t do their job

But none of these are true. In order to work effectively and have a healthy work-life balance, you must set boundaries. Here are some examples:

• Only offering so much help: I’m not saying to only do the minimum required, but if you find your own workload suffering because you are helping everyone else, then it’s time to reassess. 
• Separate the personal and professional: Again, this doesn’t mean you can’t have friendly relationships with your colleagues, but you need to be clear about the differences in everyone’s roles when you’re at work or out for coffee.
• Plan your time: You can’t be on-call all the time, so make sure you have downtime when you’re not online or available. Be careful of becoming too regimented on this, though. Sometimes, things happen outside of working hours, and not dealing with them can cause you more stress.
• Determine communication methods: Make sure your team knows how and when you want communication. This is a two-way street, though, so make sure you respect their boundaries, too.
• Be reasonable with your workload: Don’t say yes to taking on everything! Be realistic with what you (and your team) can manage. People will respect you for meeting and exceeding expectations more than if you overextend and miss deadlines. 
• Take care with meetings: If you’re not already, you’ll soon be aware of how much time you spend in meetings. Make sure they are valuable to you and not an unnecessary draw on your time and energy.

5 - How to be flexible

The flip side of setting boundaries is learning to work in dynamic situations. So much of the EM role is based in uncertainty, changing minute-to-minute and hour-to-hour. 

The good news? Flexibility is a skill you can learn! Here are some steps you can take to start feeling more comfortable:

• Embrace the transition: It’s not just you working anymore – leveraging your team’s strengths can help you manage changing situations. 
• Embrace your environment: Much like with stress, there’s no point fighting uncertainty. Instead, accept the reality of your situation, and you’ll start to find it easier to manage.
• Have low expectations but high standards: Expecting everything to go a certain way is a surefire way to get frustrated. Maintain your high standards but lower your expectations, and be flexible about the ways things play out. 
• Focus on results, not methods: Expecting your team to work the way you would is another recipe for frustration. Everyone works in different ways. If those different ways are achieving the goals you’ve set, then they’re working.

6 - How to prioritize tasks

When you are juggling so many things, it’s easy to think all of them are urgent and important. Especially when everyone around you is telling you that! But one of the keys to success in managing this overwhelming workload is prioritizing. 

As they say, “How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.” This is how I eat mine:

• Be ruthless: Lots of the items you might want to do but don’t need to do right now. Have a separate list for “someday” items and put as many as you can there.
• Group: Tasks such as emails, small items that take under 5 minutes, or meeting prep can be grouped together. This often turns 100 items into ten.
• Find high-priority items: These are tasks that have deadlines or that other people are dependent on. Focus on these first! 
• Follow the rule of three: Aim for three items a day. This is a realistic and achievable amount.
• Determine your high-leverage tasks: What is the best use of your time now and in the long term? Quick fixes often end up costing you down the line, so really assess the merit of the task. What might take longer now will pay dividends in the future.   

Don’t think it’s just a one-off job, though. Like bathing, prioritizing needs to become part of your daily routine. Every morning, I allocate approximately 30 minutes to organize and prioritize my to-do items. This may sound like a lot but, in the long term, doing this saves me hours and days, even.

There are many techniques, methods, and tools that can help. You’ll find some of the ones I use in the next section.

7 - Tools to help you get organized

Like prioritizing, organizing is key to succeeding as an EM. When you have so much going on simultaneously, it’s imperative to staying sane and not getting overwhelmed. Luckily, there are some tools at our disposal that help do just that. 

My top eight are:

1. Calendar: This is a greatly overlooked tool. Not only can it schedule meetings and block time for different tasks, but it can also highlight when you’re short on time, which helps you better prioritize and delegate.
2. Things: This app holds everything for me. I check in with it every morning and use it to organize my to-do list and set reminders. It’s my digital personal assistant. 
3. Notion: This works as a large notebook for me. I use it as a repository to store all my notes, information, and tasks. 
4. Grain: This is the meeting note-taker I use for meetings. It efficiently provides summaries, transcripts, chapters, and participation metrics for all my meetings. 
5. Otter: While this is also a meeting note-taker, I use it to turn my voice notes into text notes. Really convenient for maximizing downtime, such as while I’m driving. It provides full transcripts and actionable items with checkbox to-do lists.
6. Superhuman: Superhuman lets me process hundreds of emails quickly, categorize them, generate replies with AI, and set reminders. My workflow speeds up tremendously. 
7. ChatGPT: While not necessarily an organizational tool, ChatGPT is incredibly useful for many things, including transcripts. I use it to process them, ask questions, reformat, and refine them. It saves a bunch of time. 
8. Perplexity: This is my go-to for any research. Its model is more up-to-date than ChatGPT, and it has useful focus settings that help streamline results.

You might find some of these useful or are using them already. Whatever tool you choose, make sure they’re not too labor-intensive. It’s about productivity, not the process. 

8 - How to hold yourself accountable

Again, the old adage holds true: how can you manage people if you can’t manage yourself? In a leadership position, we have to hold ourselves to higher standards and emulate what we want to see in our teams. Accountability is a cornerstone of this. 

If you’re not accountable, your whole team breaks down. They’ll lose:

• Trust in you
• Their work ethic
• Their own accountability
• And their job satisfaction

Importantly, they are not going to tell you this. It just happens silently over time. Your accountability is dependent on your own inner compass, so it’s something you have to be cognizant of. 

Here are some ways you can do this:

• Know the rules: And, more importantly, follow the same rules you set for your team. Otherwise, the whole system falls apart.
• Be realistic: If you’re like me, you’ll want to do everything! But we can’t, so be realistic about what you can and can’t do. No one will be disappointed that way.
• Avoid over-promising: Don’t commit to things you’re not 100% sure you can do. Give realistic estimates and review them often.
• Say no: Again, this goes hand-in-hand with being realistic. Saying yes to everything doesn’t make you a good manager, nor does saying no to everything make you a bad one. Use your common sense here and look at prioritizing and delegating to help mitigate the workload.
• Be honest: Always be honest if you’ve dropped the ball on something or failed to meet an expectation. As embarrassing and uncomfortable as it is, being honest will foster more trust in you from your team and peers. 

Again, it’s okay to make mistakes here. But being self-aware and holding yourself accountable will make you a better EM, improve team dynamics, and foster a better work environment.  

The short version: mastering the role

Being an engineering manager is a demanding job, to say the least. It can often feel overwhelming and, sometimes, insurmountable. But it is doable.

Putting some practical strategies in place is an essential step in helping you manage the demands of the role. These include: 

• Effectively managing your time and energy: Know what your limits are, honor them, and remember your results will be invisible.
• Learning methods to manage your stress levels: Pause and take time for yourself. More importantly, accept that stress is a part of your job, learn your triggers, and plan for them.
• Staying in control of your emotions: Think before you speak, shift the conversation to async if needed, and use your emotional intelligence to stay aware of how you’re feeling.
• Setting boundaries: Don’t do everything, plan out your time, and separate the personal and professional.
• Learning to be flexible: Have low expectations but high standards, focus on results, not methods, and accept that change will happen.
• Prioritizing your to-do list and workload: Be ruthless with what you should and shouldn’t do that day, aim to complete only three items per day, and determine your most high-leverage ones.
• Utilizing tools to help you get organized: Use the tools that will most help you, but don’t waste time looking for what’s perfect. Examples include Notion, Grain, Otter, and more. 
• And holding yourself accountable: Know the rules and follow them, avoid over-promising, say no, and be honest.

As with everything, when you start out in this role, it’s going to be a learning curve. So, don’t feel disheartened if you don’t get things perfect straight away – I certainly didn’t! Be prepared to adjust and course-correct when necessary. 

But if you start working on yourself in these areas and continue building your team, I have no doubt that you’ll be an amazing EM.

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Originally published on Medium.com