Day 27: Shifting from Top-Down to Center-Out Leadership
Be Better Engineering Leader, a 30 Days Series
This is the sixth week of a series of daily lessons on how to Be a Better Engineering Leader. I recommend spending up to an hour on each lesson to gain insights into Product, Technology, and People—areas critical for every Engineering Manager.
Today's lesson focuses on evolving your leadership approach from top-down to center-out.
Top-down leadership, while efficient and clear in its directives, often limits creativity and can lead to disengagement. Center-out leadership, on the other hand, promotes autonomy, innovation, and collaboration.
This shift will help you reduce your cognitive load and empower your team to take ownership of their work, driving better product and technology outcomes.
Action Points
Identify Missing Context:
Reflect on the critical product context your team needs to operate autonomously. Consider customer pain points, business goals, and the impact of your product features.
You can take more insights from the lesson of Day 21.
Empower Decision-Making with Clear Boundaries:
Establish a framework of expectations and principles. For instance, set guidelines for quality standards, performance metrics, or architectural decisions, while leaving the implementation details to the team.
You can take more insights from the lesson of a Day 10.
Foster a Culture of Candid Feedback and Knowledge Sharing:
Encourage team members to openly share their thoughts and ideas on ongoing projects, even if they challenge the status quo.
You can take more insights from the lesson of a Day 4.
Encourage Product Understanding Among Engineers:
It’s crucial that engineers understand the product’s business context. This will allow them to make better decisions independently.
You can take more insights from the lesson of a Day 6.
Delegate and Follow Up:
Empower your team to make decisions but ensure there's a follow-up mechanism to learn from the outcomes.
You can take more insights from the lesson of a Day 15.
Transitioning to a center-out approach is not about giving up control but about establishing clear boundaries within which your team can innovate. This reduces your own decision fatigue and builds a more engaged and capable team.
Extra Resources
Premium Article: Top-down Leadership vs Center-out Leadership
PDF Cheat Sheet: Center-Out Leadership PDF
Blog Post: Different Styles of Engineering Leadership
By adopting a center-out leadership style, you’ll foster a more dynamic and resilient team that can better respond to product and technology challenges, freeing you to focus on strategic leadership.
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