Leadership GardenArchive
Every essay since 2017, grouped by year.
202632 essays
AI Is Not Just A Tool
AIYou’ll Know in Two Quarters
AIGet Really Good at Navigating Change
Everyone Has a Recipe Now
AIThe Cost of an Objection Went to Zero
AIYou Get What You Reward
Specs Don’t Drive Anything
AIThe Same Feature, Twice
AIHow I Decide Whether to Split a Team
A hard job attached to an easy idea
AIWhy Organizations Defend Failing Decisions
Make Your Judgment Transferable
Dopamine Fracking Comes for Your Judgment
Pain Is a Proxy
The Typing Was the Safety Harness
Productivity Is Not Speed
Your Career Framework Can’t Run Your Interviews
No, AI didn’t break PRs
AIEngineering Burnout Has Five Faces, and Your Career Ladder Walks You Through All of Them
The Senior Engineer Crisis Isn’t Coming. It’s Already Here.
Your Team Is Not a School
Why Your 360 Feedback Isn’t Working
AI Is an Amplifier. What Are You Amplifying?
AIVerification Debt Is Your Next Headache
AIThere Is No Standard EM Role
The Finger Is Not the Moon
What Actually Breaks at 30 People
Why Estimates Fail (And Why You Still Need Them)
The Constraint You Won’t Find on a Jira Board
You’re Coaching Too Much
Chaos vs. Bureaucracy: Pick Your Poison
The Work Moved: What the AI Coding Debate Actually Agrees On
AI
202534 essays
False Consensus: Why We Think We’re The Baseline
In defense of office gossiping
Developer Flow
On (Workplace) Politics
Software Engineering Laws - Time & Estimation
Software Engineering LawsSoftware Engineering Laws - Team & Project Management
Software Engineering LawsSoftware Engineering Laws - System Architecture
Software Engineering LawsSoftware Engineering Laws - Risk & Security
Software Engineering LawsSoftware Engineering Laws - Quality & Testing
Software Engineering LawsSoftware Engineering Laws - Product Development
Software Engineering Laws - Performance & Scalability
Software Engineering LawsSoftware Engineering Laws - Metrics & Monitoring
Software Engineering LawsSoftware Engineering Laws - Human Factors
Software Engineering LawsSoftware Engineering Laws - Design & UX
Software Engineering LawsSoftware Engineering Laws - Coding & Development
Software Engineering Laws56 Laws of Software Engineering
Software Engineering LawsOn Experimentation And Trust
Why I Dumped LeetCode Interviews
20 Business Terms You Need Before Your Next Budget Meeting
No Clear “Why”, No Clear Path
Avoid “Motivation Hacks.” Build Systems Your Team Can Rely On.
Stop Solving Everyone’s Problems. Coach Them To Solve Their Own.
Every Team Problem Is Ultimately A Leadership Problem
Compliance Is Not Commitment
Good Managers Clear Paths
Your Team Knows More Than You Do
The “Right” Decision Doesn’t Exist. Just Make The Best One You Can.
Lead By Example, Especially When No One’s Watching.
Bad Managers Hide From Accountability
SPACE Framework: 5 Metrics That Actually Work
On-Call Done Right
The Power Of “I Don’t Know”
The Swiss Cheese Model
The No-BS Guide to Engineering Team Conflicts
202436 essays
Loyalty Is Earned, Not Given
Smell the Smoke, Prevent the Fire
Stop Avoiding, Start Owning
The Problem with ‘Just’: Tech’s Most Dangerous Four-Letter Word
The Knowing-Doing Gap In Leadership
On Conflicts
Stop Fixing, Start Leading: How Coaching Changed My Leadership Style
Knowledge Silos: The Engineering Productivity Tax
Why Goodhart’s Law Isn’t All That Useful
The Art of Calling Out Room Dynamics
Conviction, Policy, Consensus: Choose Your Leadership Style Wisely
Don’t Fear Power
The Johari Window
The Ultimate Guide to Retrospectives: Transforming Your Team, One Look Back at a Time
Breaking the Expert Beginner Pattern
The One Thing Killing Your Team’s Output (WIP)
Bad Managers Hide From Accountability
Revolutionize Your Retrospectives with the Starfish Method
Retrospectives That WorkAn Intro To Career Frameworks
The Persistence Principle
Being in Tech Means Being a Lifelong Learner
From Meh to Yeah: Mastering the Mad Sad Glad Retrospective
Retrospectives That WorkThe Human Element: Tech’s Final Frontier
Rescue Your Meetings: 3 Polite Ways to Refocus
Don’t Amplify The Drama
Set Sail for Success: Why Your Team Needs to Try the Sailboat Retrospective
Retrospectives That WorkThe Start Stop Continue Retrospective
Retrospectives That WorkNavigating the BS Maze: A Tech Leader’s Guide to Brandolini’s Law
Chesterton’s Fence
On Senior Engineers
Why Your Big Brain Needs Breathing Room (Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Slack Time)
Your Brain Needs a Break from Work
Mentoring Made Easy: A Beginner’s Framework for Success
How to Build a High Performing Team
Navigating Uncertainty: Software Engineering and Epistemic Learned Helplessness
How to Get Your Work Recognized — 6 Strategies
202315 essays
Quiet Confidence – How To Thrive As An Introvert Leader
These 10 Mental Models Will Make You Smarter
The 3 Layers to Unlocking Team Trust: A Leader’s Guide
How To Start Managing People – The First 3 One-on-Ones
10 Leadership Styles Every Manager Needs to Know
6 Productivity Techniques Which Won’t Burn You Out
How to Have More Effective Performance Review Talks: 6 Expert Techniques
Great Leaders Make People Feel Safe
Demystifying Burnout – A Deep Dive Into Its Symptoms And Remedies
The Rule of 3: A Game-Changer for Your Communication Skills
The Office Odyssey: Return, Resist or Remodel?
Managing Expectations: 5 Steps to Effective Communication and Understanding
Zoom Fatigue Unpacked: Understanding and Overcoming Virtual Exhaustion
Retrospective Antipatterns: The Silent Agile Team Killers
7 Leadership Lessons from the Fields - Advice from Farmers
20227 essays
20218 essays
The Most Important Characteristics Of High-Performance Teams (2023)
The 10 Golden Rules of Team Leadership
4 Product Development Fallacies
Tips On Prioritizing Tech Debt In A Healthy Way
Stop Changing, Start Experimenting
The 5 Common Mistakes Of New Engineering Managers
Use Active Listening to Boost Your Career
The 4 Key Ways We Fail As Engineering Managers
202015 essays
Kindness is a hidden software engineering superpower
7 harmful biases in performance reviews
Communication skills for successful software engineers
Acing your technical interview – a hiring manager’s guide
The top 11 technical interview myths
The four dangerous animals of product development
How to stop winning arguments
The stories we tell ourselves
On COVID, burnout, teams and self-care
The 101 of effective goal setting
Top 12 Questions You Get as a Hiring Manager
Thoughts on giving feedback
Learning at work is work
Questions vs. directions
The basics of one-on-ones