Essays

Technical leadership

Twelve fortnightly essays on judgment, influence, and growing through other people. Free to read. Free by email.

• Issue 122 July 2026

  Individual productivity only gets you so far

  The career bottleneck is rarely raw technical skill.

• Issue 228 July 2026

  Your technical context is a decision advantage

  Bringing engine-room reality into organisational decisions is one of the highest-ROI moves a technical leader can make.

• Issue 316 Aug 2026

  Experts see things others don't

  Skill acquisition is a change in perception. That changes how you grow, and how you grow others.

• Issue 427 Aug 2026

  Motivation is not a dial you can turn

  You cannot install motivation in someone else. You can only build the conditions that make it likely, and those conditions are far easier to break than to build.

• Issue 514 Sept 2026

  Leadership and personality dynamics

  For most people, leadership style is just personality. The self-aware ones notice when temperament is not enough, and add skills and behaviours so they can handle a wider range of situations.

• Issue 613 Oct 2026

  Most feedback makes things worse

  Unstructured workplace feedback fails more often than it helps. The skill is raising the odds: separate growth from ratings, aim at the work, and match the moment to the person.

Also explore the Big Tech role benchmarks.