The Misanthropic Developer

It’s Not My Fault But It Is My Responsibility

February 15th, 2023

The nature of a lot of my work means that I find myself put into situations where my team and I come in to continue (or fix, depending on the day) the work of other people who have long since rolled off of a project or out of a company.

Sometimes this means coming into an environment where tensions are already high and trust is already low because of the actions of people who left before you ever arrived. This can lead to some unpleasant interactions. In hindsight, they’re often funny, but in the moment they’re a recipe for a really bad day.

I once found myself apologizing to a member of my team because they had gotten raked over the coals for something that they weren’t aware of as being a problem (and which I inadvertently set in motion because we were all new). They tried to assure me that it was okay and that it wasn’t my fault which, frankly, was extremely nice of them.

I made it a point to turn it into a teachable moment by telling them it may not have been my fault but that it was my responsibility and that those two things are different (though both are important).

As a leader, you may not be the cause of the underlying problems (i.e. it’s not your fault), but it is on you to take care of things going forward – making sure that your people have the information, skills and tools that they need, managing expectations both of the people who report to you as well as the expectations of the people above and to the sides of you, and keeping the lines of communication open to help ensure success in what you’re doing (or at least as close to success as you can reasonably get).

That’s what it means to take responsibility for not only your actions, but the outcome of the projects you’re placed on and the success or failure of the team that you lead. The one common element in all of your successes and failures is you and you need to own that.

If something didn’t go well, examine first if there was anything you could have done differently to improve the outcome then expand the scope to see if there is anything that the team could have done (Hint – most of the changes the team may have made would have probably at least been impacted by something you could have done).

If something went well, look at the things that caused the success and then look at things that you could have done to make it go even better. After all, failure isn’t our only teacher.

Taking responsibility for situations isn’t easy. In fact, sometimes it’s downright frightening, but it’s the only way to consistently get better and to more consistently be successful (again, not everything is going to work out well, and that’s okay too).

However, you’re going to need to temper this mindset a little. It’s true that you’re responsible for things at your level as well as for how the actions of people you’re leading work out. It’s equally true, and just as important, that you empower the people you lead to be responsible for the things at their level (and that they do the same for the people they lead).

This is how you get self-empowered teams that can take ownership of tough problems and (hopefully) succeed where others might not.

If you take literally everything on your own shoulders, your team will come to rely on you too much. This will slow them down and lead to even more problems because they don’t feel like they can act on their own. In contrast, empowering them means that they can make decisions which they are better equipped to make and execute on than you would be. That makes success more likely and, honestly, makes you look kind of amazing to the people above you because you’ve helped gel a team that Gets Things Done.

Do what you can, take responsibility for the outcomes, empower your own people, and see that they do the same. It’s a massive change in mindset for most people, but the results might surprise you.
What Are You Waiting For? A Different Take on a Trite Question.

February 6th, 2023

If you’re anything like me (or many of the people I’ve known), you’ve gotten asked “what are you waiting for?” more than once in your life.

In these instances, the emphasis is put on the word “waiting”. “What are you waiting for?” – as though the act of waiting is, by its very nature, offensive to the person asking the question. And, truth be told, it probably is offensive to the person asking the question because they’ve been conditioned to think that you have to always be doing something or else you’re a sinful waste of flesh (the Protestant Work Ethic strikes again).

The thing is that it’s a perfectly valid and useful question – just not the way they ask it, so we’re going to ask it in a way that may actually be of some benefit to you.

What are you waiting for?

Taking the emphasis off of the act of waiting and putting it on the thing that will cause you to stop waiting hits a little differently, doesn’t it? Almost as though you are waiting for a valid purpose.

Here’s a hint – you usually are.

Waiting (or at least appearing to wait) is sometimes a perfectly valid option. There are even times when it’s the wisest option.

You may be taking a break after having done a lot of work. You may be waiting for a long running process to finish. You may be waiting for political infighting to get to a point where it’s to your advantage to act. You may even be performing actual work (thinking, for example) in such a manner that it only looks like you’re inactive.

These are all valid reasons to wait, and are by no means the only valid reasons. Some of them are even covered in classic written works on strategy.

The real question, however, is what will get you to stop waiting?

Have a criteria that will cause you to start being active again, otherwise you run the risk of falling into indecision (also known as analysis paralysis). When that criteria is met, act with purpose and at a pace which makes sense. You don’t always have to be “busy” doing something, no matter what a lot of people in this society may try to tell you. Waiting can be a useful choice as long as you know why you’re waiting and know (roughly) what you’re going to do afterward.
Git – For More Than Just Source Code

January 25th, 2023

At this point, the majority of developers are using some sort of version control (or at least I hope they are). It’s widely used for a reason – it helps save our butts on a regular basis.

Modern version control systems like git allow us to roll back uncommitted changes or check out previous commits, which let us try approaches to problem solving that are much harder without that safety net (provided we commit frequently). They let us have multiple people working on the same program at once with less of a risk of people stepping on each other’s toes. They even help us with deployment strategies.

What if I told you they can help you do a lot more than just that?

For me, git has become kind of like Frank’s Red Hot Sauce – I use that shit on everything.

Seriously. I obviously use it for source control, but I also use it for the majority of my writing, for maintaining workshops and talks that I create, and a myriad of other purposes. Leveraged properly, it can be an amazing tool with the added bonus of giving you an off-site backup of whatever you keep in it.

All of the writing for this site is kept in source control. Just like with my code, I make regular commits with (generally) meaningful commit messages. This allows me to keep multiple pieces of writing in flight at once as well as lets me edit my drafts without any worries – if I don’t like how an edit comes out (if it feels clumsy, for example), I just revert my changes.

Workshops and talks are another place where I leverage git, for many of the same reasons that I use it for my writing – it lets me try different approaches to things. If I need to make changes for a specific presentation, I can just make a branch off of main and make the changes there. If I decide I want to make them part of my base talk, I can just merge them back in. No pressure.

Where it really shines, though, is in keeping my resume up to date.

I edit my resume fairly regularly, and sometimes those edits are significant. With source control, just like with my regular writing, I can make changes without worrying because I can always revert back to a previous version. Even better, if I want to tailor my resume for a specific company or job (or to accentuate a specific type of experience that I have), I can just make a branch and do the edits there.

I name the branch after the position or company and drop in a text copy of all of the artifacts for that position (description, correspondence, etc). It helps me keep things organized and lets me refer back to older copies if I talk to the same company at a later date.

Version control systems like git have honestly become one of my most used tools for coordinating and editing non-code work. Hopefully this has given you food for thought on how to leverage it (and possibly other tools that you already use) outside of your normal coding practices.
A Job is a Business Transaction – You don’t Owe Them “Loyalty”

January 16th, 2023

I recently saw someone that I know post that they look suspiciously at people with short resume entries. He then went on about how he just “knows” that they won’t stick around and that he’ll expend time and emotional energy to teach them, only to have them abandon him (not the word he used, but the intent was there).

The hilarious part of this, to me, is that I know for a fact that most of his engagements with companies have been under two years, so not only is he being ridiculous about this, he’s being a hypocrite.

Let’s get real for a minute and dig into this a little, shall we?

Your job is a business transaction. You are literally trading your time, effort, and experience to a company in exchange for a paycheck. You aren’t joining a “family” and you aren’t selling yourself into bondage or serfdom.

That’s not to say that you can’t have emotional attachments of friendship to the people you work with, but you shouldn’t have them to the company because they most certainly won’t have it for you. One-sided emotional relationships are ripe for abuse (and that’s exactly what some really bad companies foster and exploit).

Instead of operating from a sense of loyalty, operate from a sense of enlightened self-interest.

When your job, which is a business transaction, is no longer in the best interest of both parties, it’s time to start considering alternatives. A company won’t hesitate to show you the door when they decide it’s in their best interest to let you go. You need to look at your current job the same way.

It could be that your raises haven’t kept pace with the increase in salaries in the market. It could be that you aren’t able to advance where you currently are. It could be that you aren’t learning and growing your skills as much as you think you should. It could even be that every day feels like an endless slog and you need a change.

Any of these (and more) are completely valid reasons to leave one position for another one. Don’t let anyone try to guilt trip you into staying someplace that it isn’t in your best interest to be.

As for bosses complaining about the time and effort they spent to grow you in your current position –that’s part of their job. It’s literally part of the deal that most of us make when we sign the contract – we get paid to provide value and, in the course of our job, we get to learn new things and grow our skills.

Not only is it part of the deal, it’s in the best interest of the company to help you learn and grow. Having a technical member of staff who doesn’t learn new things over the course of their time at a company is a recipe for disaster for that company. Don’t let them try to act like they’re doing you a favor by letting you stretch yourself.

I’ve been doing this job for a week or two at this point (okay, it’s been something over 20 years now, but who’s counting) and I have to tell you that I’m legitimately happy for my mentees and the people who work under me if they go somewhere else as the next step in their journey.

It may be rough for my team in the short term, but we’ll manage. As a general rule, nobody will die if a person leaves your team – and if a business fails because of someone leaving, well… that’s a whole other problem (and also not the fault or concern of the person leaving).

In the end, hopefully we had a good time working with each other, learned new things all around, and came out of the deal better than when we went in. We’ve both also increased our networks and can use that to not only help ourselves, but also help others by leveraging the relationships we have.

I accept that anyone I hire will eventually move on from the company I’m at. I also accept that some day I will move on too. It’s a fact of both life and business – situations and priorities change and you shouldn’t have to feel misplaced loyalty to an organization that won’t love you back. Your loyalty is best placed with yourself, your friends, and family (either by blood or by bond).

Anyone who thinks that you owe them because they hired you is someone that’s sending off both massive red flags and showing a lot of insecurity.
Re-Evaluate Corporate Goals. Don’t Just Add.

January 10th, 2023

It’s a new calendar year and we all know what that means – new year’s resolutions.

Only I don’t mean the kind where we say that we’re going to get six pack abs and climb Mt Everest. I mean the kind that your company is starting to set for the next year.

Increase revenue by 30% year over year. Cut costs by 20% year over year. Launch 15 new product lines.

You get the idea.

If you’ve been in this career for more than a few years and you’re able to pay attention to the world around you, you’ve probably seen this in most places you’ve worked. Honestly, we probably start to get a little nervous if we don’t know what the business’ new goals are because that means that we have no idea what we’re working toward (and, therefore, what our KPIs/OKRs/EIEIOs are going to be based on).

There’s nothing wrong with setting new goals at any point in the year. In fact, we should assess where we are and where we want to be multiple times a year, not just at the beginning/end of the year (be it calendar or fiscal). And we should do this both for companies and for ourselves.

The problem is that, much like personal new year’s resolutions, corporate annual goals also tend to be unrealistic for one very specific reason – they add the new goals on top of the old goals.

So, if last year’s goal was “increase revenue x%” and this year’s goal is “decrease costs y%”, a lot of businesses want to continue to do the old goal (increase revenue) because it made the owners/shareholders happy and now they also want to decrease costs – “do more with less”.

That sort of thing doesn’t generally work in the real world. After a while, you run out of inefficiencies to improve.

Instead, we need to start setting realistic priorities for our companies at the strategic level as well as for our departments, operating groups, and even team levels (which will tend to be a mix of strategic and tactical).

This means that we need to come in with the mindset of choosing (at most) a few key areas for improvement while leaving enough slack in our plans that we can respond to change.

I think I just heard an executive scream in pain at both concepts in that last sentence.

Let them scream and do it anyway.

We need to limit the number of things we focus on because we, as people, can only do so much. To quote Sun-tzu “If he [the enemy] sends reinforcements everywhere, he will everywhere be weak.”

The same is true of us. We can’t focus on everything and do it all well. We have to limit the number of things that we work to do (or improve) at any given time. If we try to do too much, we won’t actually accomplish any of our goals and will end up burning out ourselves and our co-workers.

The slack is equally important because if we become so focused on our stated goals that we’re unresponsive to change, we can miss opportunities to improve our operations (or even our bottom line) or we can miss things that can cause a lot of pain to our business/department/team.

Having the time to breathe and think makes it more likely that you can take advantage of the situation and also that you’ll be able to spot it in the first place.

Limit your initiatives, growth areas, and targeted areas of improvement. The more you commit to, the less you’ll actually accomplish. Instead, commit to a few things and reassess throughout the year to see what progress you’ve made and if your plans need to change.

Honestly, getting that six pack and climbing Mt Everest in the next 12 months would be easier than what a lot of companies try to do every year.
There’s More To Life Than Work

January 2nd, 2023

There’s frequently a worship of “hustle culture” in this, and many other, industries. You get told that if you work really really hard and do insanely long hours that people will somehow recognize you and you’ll magically get ahead.

It’s a lie and I think a lot of people are starting to realize it. The fact that every business journal has articles on “quiet quitting” and people refusing to work extra hours is a sign that this is both the case and that the people at the top are terrified of this trend because they’re working so hard to change it.

Working insane hours for someone else will almost never let you get ahead. In fact, it’s more likely to wear you down and encourage others to exploit you because you obviously don’t value yourself or your time. (Remember that we encourage the behavior that we allow.)

Sure, it may work on extremely rare occasions if you’re working for someone else. It’s more likely to work if you’re working for yourself rather than someone else, but even then, the odds are against you for a number of reasons.

In my career, I’ve literally seen people work themselves into the hospital or even into an early grave. I’ve honestly lost track of how many of my friends and coworkers have had heart attacks, cancer, and other health issues that were, at the very least, exacerbated by (if not caused outright by) the stress of working ridiculous numbers of hours and being “always on”.

I remember a coworker of mine being in the hospital after a heart attack and his boss visiting him, demanding to know why he wasn’t using the time to study programming instead of resting like his doctor ordered him to. I wish this was a joke or an exaggeration.

If you add in the people who have suffered extreme burnout or had their doctors literally tell them that their job was killing them and they needed to find someplace else to be, the number is even higher.

For my own part, my doctor was overjoyed when I left my position with a Fortune 50 mega-bank because of what it was doing to my health. She had reason to be happy that I quit. It’s left me with health issues that I will have to deal with for the rest of my life. Thankfully we caught them early, so they’re manageable with lifestyle changes, but the damage is still there.

As a result, I’ve gone out of my way to set healthier boundaries for myself. I’ve also worked hard to help set healthy boundaries and expectations for the other members of my team.

This is often more difficult than you’d think.

Most of my current team is in India. They’re a great bunch of people and I enjoy working with every last one of them. There is, however, a downside (as there is with working with any group of people).

Their work day ends at about 11am my time. This in itself isn’t a problem, though it does occasionally make it difficult for them to get access to some of our coworkers in the US. The problem is that they are a truly driven bunch of people (which is great and part of the reason that I love the lot of them – they honestly help inspire me to keep improving as well) and I have to make sure that they don’t overwork themselves (which is bad).

True story. I literally have each of them pinned on my Teams chat list so I can make sure that their status isn’t “online” well past their normal hours. I occasionally have to remind them to log off and go have a life if they’re working too late.

I’ve also had to check in with my onshore colleagues when they send messages well outside of hours to make sure that they’re doing alright, that they don’t feel overwhelmed with work, and that they aren’t doing too much outside of normal hours.

When leading a team (or multiple teams), it’s literally part of my job to make sure that my people have what they need. This includes having enough time off to recharge, be people, and live their lives.

If anyone tells you that it isn’t your job to be concerned for the wellbeing of the people who report to you, you have my permission to tell them to pound sand (using whatever level of politeness you feel is appropriate at the time). People like that shouldn’t be in leadership positions.

Work is not, and should not be, the only thing in your life. We are whole people who spend part of our waking hours working in order to be able to live our lives. And I think that we’re finally starting to realize that again as a society.

It’s long past time that this expectation of overwork stop, and the only ones able to stop it are us. Value yourself and those around you – especially the people that report to you. You help set the tone for what is expected and acceptable.
Are You REALLY Listening? Probably Not.

December 12th, 2022

One of the most underrated skills as a leader, and indeed in business in general, is listening. Actually listening.

Unfortunately, most of us don’t do it very well. We may think that we do. We may even retain information that was said, but we aren’t really listening. At best, most of us are simply waiting for our turn to speak – partially because in this society, being heard is more valued than listening to others.

The type of not listening takes a number of forms.

On the far end of the spectrum is where we actively ignore people. We aren’t listening and we make our disinterest in what the other person is saying clear.

Then you have the situations where we pretend to listen, but aren’t retaining any information that the other person is saying. If someone’s doing this, you can sometimes see their eyes glaze over, or they might be pretending to take notes on their laptop, but they’re actually doing other things. This is commonly seen during meetings though it also happens in other situations.

Farther down the spectrum is where we retain information from what the other person is saying, but we still aren’t actually listening.

Some people will argue that this is listening, but they’d be wrong. It’s a necessary part of listening, but it isn’t listening.

Retaining information means that you’ve heard someone. That’s not the same thing.

You haven’t listened until the other person feels like you have.

That’s it. That’s the secret.

Your own perception has nothing to do with it. Whether or not you’ve listened depends entirely on the perception of the person you’re listening to.

One of the more straightforward ways to arrive at a place where the other person feels heard is to be an active listener. Ask questions. Summarize in your own words what you think they’re trying to convey. Be involved in the conversation instead of just passively sitting there.

It’s a display of empathy and interest.

If you’re actively involved in the conversation (instead of just waiting for your turn to speak or talking over someone), they’re much more likely to feel heard. This not only makes most people more positively disposed toward you, it often leads to them revealing information that they may not intend to.

In business, both of these things can be absolutely invaluable. Having them think well of you makes them more likely to cooperate with you. Getting unintended pieces of information can help you see the bigger picture or even give you an edge in negotiations.

Even if we aren’t taught it explicitly, the implicit lesson that we learn as we grow up is that the person speaking is the one who has the power because other people stop what they’re doing and pay attention to the one speaking. How many times as a kid did you hear some variation of the admonition “I’m SPEAKING” come out of the mouth of one of your teachers or other authority figures. They’re just leaving the “that means I’m more important than you” part of the sentence unsaid.

And that’s what a lot of us internalize as we grow up. (Though you’ll notice that the same people who make the demand of “I’m SPEAKING” often don’t care about listening when anyone else speaks. This isn’t a sign of strength and authority. It’s actually a sign of weakness and fear.)

The truth is that the person who’s listening can often gain even more power because they’re able to build relationships, see the larger picture, and negotiate more effectively.

As a bonus, the applications of listening go beyond business and into most aspects of our lives where they involve other people.

Isn’t that reason enough to stop hearing and start listening?
I’m Not a Normal Developer. You Don’t Have to be Like Me.

December 6th, 2022

A while back, I had the privilege to speak with another cohort of new developers at a local bootcamp. This is the second time that I’ve been invited to speak with this particular group and I’ve enjoyed myself both times.

This time was especially fun for me because one of the other panelists (unbeknownst to me when I agreed to come back) was an old friend and mentor that I hadn’t had a chance to catch up with in several years. The rest of the panelists were just as impressive a group of people and I consider it incredible that I get invited to be a part of a group like this.

That’s honestly not a humble-brag on my part. We’re talking about a group that includes 2 C-level execs (one of whom has written multiple books), a talented developer at Twitter with more degrees than I care to think about and who organizes get-togethers, a manager for a gigantic retail company who organizes other get-togethers and conferences, and then… me. It really does feel surreal to think that I belong in a group of people like that (even though I do. And so does anyone else if they want to work at it).

It’s honestly a little intimidating to find myself in a group like that (which might come as a surprise to people who know me – including the aforementioned mentor – considering the fact that I have a bit of a reputation as a smartass who doesn’t back down easily).

One of the reasons I love doing this sort of event is that things happen in the Q&A panels that make me think. Whether it’s a question from one of the students or an answer/comment from one of the other people there, something almost always happens that makes me stop and think or reflect.

I consider that a fantastic thing and well worth the price of admission on my part (which, admittedly, is minimal in this case – an hour or two of my time and a little bit of stage jitters). The fact that I get to meet so many amazing people (both speakers and students) along the way is just a bonus.

This time around, part of the food for thought was one of the other panelists (I think it was my friend, but I could be mistaken) reassuring the students that even though the people answering questions that day often work a ridiculous amount outside of their normal jobs, that it was possible to have a career in tech while still having a life.

The reason given was because the five of us “aren’t normal.” That the people who write books, organize conferences, speak at conferences and events like this, and write on a consistent basis aren’t the average.

And they’re right. We aren’t.

The people who do all of this stuff, spending their own time (and in many cases their own money) to do it aren’t normal, and we shouldn’t expect everyone else to be like them.

To take it a step further, you shouldn’t be comparing yourself to them. If you want to look at them as a role model for what you want to be able to accomplish, that’s one thing, but comparing yourself to those people is a mistake for so many reasons.

I’m one of the people doing this stuff and I have that problem sometimes. To be honest, there are times that I still don’t feel like I do enough even though I know that’s not only unhealthy but absolutely bonkers.

Everyone has their own journey. For some people, living their life means that they want to speak to crowds or write books or change the world in some way. For a lot of others, living their lives means that, when they finish work for the day, they go spend time with their families.

Both of these things are laudable.

This is something that I have to remind myself of sometimes. Not because I expect other people to be like me (though I’ll admit that there was a time I did), but because I have to remind myself that part of what sets me apart is the fact that I do often go above and beyond the average.

If you want to know the truth, I’m pretty much the poster child for imposter syndrome. I’m also far too hard on myself.

I’ve been friends with, and learned from, people who literally wrote the books that I used to learn new things (and this has been the case at least since I was in college). It’s really hard to think you’re hot stuff when the person you’re talking to is a recognized expert on the subject and has an entire shelf of books with their name on them.

It’s also downright surreal when they consider you to be part of the group – even if you have worked your ass off to get there.

Over the course of my career, I’ve had the good fortune to speak to on various topics (with crowds ranging from a dozen people to a few hundred), written for and been the executive editor of a tech magazine that was read by half a million people, taught and mentored quite a few people, and any number of other things.

All of that sounds really impressive when you put it like that, and if we’re being honest, it is. But that’s not what I see when I look in the mirror.

I just see me. I know where I came from. I grew up in rural Appalachia without a whole lot. I’ve always felt that I had to push myself at least twice as hard as other people to make it half as far. Part of the reason that I’m a smartass (despite the fact that it gets me in trouble on occasion) is because I’ve been fighting above my weight class for the majority of my career (and most of my life, if we’re being honest).

Other people see impressive accomplishments. I see a person who wonders how the heck he got here and when they’re going to figure out that he doesn’t belong there. Yet, paradoxically, at the same time I have no problem chatting with a CEO as a peer. Don’t ask me to explain how this works, because I have no idea.

For all I know, every other person you see on a stage or with their name on a book feels the same way. Honestly, they probably do. But the other person on the panel was right – we’re not “normal”.

On the upside, if you want to join the table, a lot of us seem to be willing to go and get you a chair. You can join us and be not normal too.

Just remember to live your life while you do it.
Own Up To Your Mistakes

November 29th, 2022

As a culture, we have a real problem admitting when we’re wrong. This seems to be especially true in the workplace when people in positions of authority are concerned.

There are too many people who seem to think that admitting that they made a mistake or apologizing for a misstep makes you look weak and undermines your authority. They’ve been conditioned to see answering to others as something that diminishes their own power – especially when the other person/group is someone who is supposed to be “under” them.

After all, you don’t answer to people under you. You were put in charge for a reason, right? You earned the position fair and square and part of that reason is because you’re better at what you do than they are, yes?

Bullshit. (And we’re not even getting into the reasons why you might be “in charge” that have nothing to do with your being better at the job than someone else)

I’ve even been in situations when people above me have tried to tell me that I didn’t owe an apology to people on my team for a misunderstanding of something that I said which caused them concern. I wish I was kidding.

Admitting when you’ve made a mistake doesn’t make you look weak – especially as a leader. It makes you look like someone who can admit when they did something wrong, take responsibility for it, and do things better going forward.

Do you know what we call someone like that? An actual leader.

Doing right by the people who work under you and making up for it when you fail in that endeavor is part of how you foster trust and psychological safety within a group. It doesn’t cost you anything at all and only causes you to gain in the long term.

Will some people take that as a sign of weakness and try to exploit it? Sure, but there are assholes in this world and you can deal with them as they arise. On the whole, your people will only have more respect for you when you make things right by them.

As a general rule, any problems caused by admitting your mistakes are more likely to come from above you because of toxic leadership practices that your higher ups have bought into. They’re the same people who think that you saying you don’t know the answer to a question but can look into it is a sign that you don’t know what you’re doing.

If we want things to get better, we have to model the changes that we want to see in the workplace, and indeed in the wider world. Admitting you were wrong about something can be nerve wracking, but if you don’t, how can you expect others to do so?
Managers, Give Your Team Credit

November 22nd, 2022

There are a lot of differences between good managers and bad managers. One of them is that bad managers often try to take credit for the work that their team does as though they were the ones that did it.

I once had a manager who would even try to downplay the contributions of the team doing the work when speaking at monthly meetings and literally try to act like he was the one doing all of the work. It was doubly ironic because he didn’t really do any of the work at all.

Even worse was that his boss and his boss’ boss rewarded and encouraged that behavior. He got raises and bonuses while the team that he managed essentially got nothing at all.

I hope it goes without saying, but don’t do that shit.

I can hear people saying “but I’m the manager. I should be taking credit for the work!”

No, you should be taking credit for leading a team that can do the work and helping move the boulders out of their way. YOU did not do the work – your team did. You enabled them to accomplish great things. There’s a big difference.

How do you do that? Believe it or not, it’s actually more straightforward than you’d believe.

The first step is literally to reframe how you report status and achievements. Instead of saying “I did Thing X”, you say “We did Thing X” or “My Team did Thing X” or “Our Team did Thing X”.

After that, point out concrete things that your team members did in order to achieve the thing you’re talking about.

If people father up the food chain try to give you all of the credit, go out of your way to put some of the spotlight on your people. No, I’m not kidding. A director or VP trying to give all of the credit to a single person (especially the manager, who is usually hands off) is a sign that they are a bad manager (bad managers happen at literally all levels).

That, however, doesn’t mean you have to play that game yourself. My general response when that sort of thing happens is to say “I have a good team” and then outline a few things that the members of my team did to make sure that they also get credit (ideally you’d do a thing per team member, but on large teams this can be difficult when dealing with VP+ level executives because of time constraints).

This doesn’t make you look weak. On the contrary, to competent high ups, it makes you look amazing. It makes you look like someone who can pull together a group of people that really gets stuff done, and a good executive knows just how hard that is to do consistently because they’ve had to do it too.

It’s even better if you can pull together a group to do that while, at the same time, helping the members of the team grow in skill – both technical skills and leadership skills.

Your job as a manager isn’t to do the work. It’s to help make sure that the people doing the work are able to get things done and to encourage them to grow along the way. Part of that job includes not taking credit for having done the work yourself.

There’s a word for a manager who looks like they’re doing all of the work of a team – ineffective.

There’s also a word for a manager who takes all of the credit for the work their team does – abusive.

As a leader, you don’t want to be either of those things.

And my former manager who took credit for everything and left his team out in the cold? Almost the entire team left within the span of a few months.

So there are actually two words for a manager who takes all of the credit. The second one is alone.