Why I’ve not been writing

So I explained in, quite some detail, why I started writing this blog. It seemed like I was a good engineering manager, but I couldn’t work out why. I felt I needed to understand what I knew, what I believed in, and what made me a good leader.

Writing is a process that helps me think, being dyslexic it takes me a lot of effort to write stuff down, so I have to be intentional and considered, it helps me align my thoughts.

At the end of it, I felt I had some stuff to share. So I did.

I grew strong.

About two years ago, I started on a crazy journey. Due to a combination of Klarna’s crazy growth, me convincing some senior leads to trust me, and I guess showing some element of competence on my part, I went from being responsible for one team to being a manager of managers and responsible for around 6 teams within a couple of months.

I stopped writing, at the time I assumed it was just because I was super busy with my new responsibilities. However, I now realise it wasn’t due to this, it was more to do with the fact I had switched modes.

I learned how to be a lead.

I was no longer in an ‘I think I’m good at this, and I should share my knowledge to help people get better, output!’ to ‘oh fuck, I have no idea what’s going on, must learn, input!’ mode.

Sharing knowledge just wasn’t high up on the list of things that I had the energy to invest in.

But Now I’m Back, from Input space.

I’m now in a similar situation as before, unlike when I started writing as a team lead I don’t know that I’m a good group/senior lead. However, I have been given the opportunity to take up an awesome role at the beginning of next year and in preparation for that, I really want to get my thoughts aligned and thought I might as well share as I go.

Don’t I just sit there with that sad look upon your face. Stick around.

I have some drafts and ideas that I will be writing about, but I can’t promise the next couple of months of articles will have any kind of constant theme (not that they did before anyway). I will be writing about:

• The perception of the competence of senior and c-suite leadership.
• Trying to work out how hybrid work is meant to work.
• The challenge around perceived intent in workplace communication
• Leading managers, and the spectacular levels of dysfunction they show.. joking… kinda
• Something around my thoughts on Bruce Daisley’s spectacular new book Fortitude (though I’m still processing this, it might just be an article with a massive headline that says ‘buy this book’)
• Expanding out my thoughts on empathy at scale that I have spoken a little bit about here and there.
• Trying to work out if my thoughts around “Punk Leadership” are utterly bat shit, or something worth spending some time on.
• Probably some stuff about how I hate Elon Musk, but that’s so mainstream now that it’s boring 😅
• Assessing some old-school business/management models to see if there is anything to learn from them in the 2020s

So if you’re interested in the above, stick around. Follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Mastodon, or sign up to the email list on this site.

Additionally, if you had an interested in Hybrid working I would greatly appreciate you filling in my survey on the topic.