Leadership GardenLeadership
Leadership principles for setting direction, building trust, and carrying responsibility well.
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Get Really Good at Navigating Change
Advice for engineering leaders on reorgs, AI churn, and change: respond to fewer things and prove you adapted by shipping.
You Get What You Reward
Telling your team quality matters changes nothing. Here is what actually moves engineering culture, and the test for whether your fix is real.
Specs Don’t Drive Anything
Spec-driven development’s defenders describe a loop. Its diagrams draw a pipeline. An engineering leader on where the spec actually belongs.
The Same Feature, Twice
The same feature took a weekend on a laptop and a quarter in the product. The model was identical both times. Everything around it was not.
How I Decide Whether to Split a Team
Most advice on splitting teams answers “is this team too big?” That’s the wrong question when you’re splitting into a strategy.
A hard job attached to an easy idea
Most engineering orgs run a hard job attached to an easy idea. How to tell the difference, and what to do about it.
Why Organizations Defend Failing Decisions
Why do organizations defend failing decisions? Learn how to record assumptions, set review triggers, and change course without turning to blame.
Make Your Judgment Transferable
Learn how managers can transfer context, judgment, and decision-making ability so their teams operate independently without losing direction.
Pain Is a Proxy
Pain is a side effect, not the active ingredient. Proximity to consequences is what teaches.
Productivity Is Not Speed
A fast engineering team is not automatically a productive one. The real test is whether the work changes anything that matters.