The Trifecta of Engineering Leadership: Art of Juggling Delivery, Technology, and People for Managers

In the realm of Engineering Management, effective leadership goes beyond traditional managerial roles, branching into three distinct pillars: Technology Leadership, Delivery Leadership, and People Leadership. This triad forms the foundations of a successful engineering team, each aspect demanding unique skills and attention. In this article, we delve into the intricacies of each leadership dimension, exploring the behaviours, responsibilities, overlaps and challenges faced by Engineering Leaders who excel in Technology, Delivery, or People Leadership.

The Trifecta of Engineering Leadership

There are three focus areas of leadership for an Engineering Leader. They are…

• Technology Leadership
• Delivery Leadership
• People Leadership

Let’s delve into each area in more detail.

Technology Leadership

Technology Leadership encapsulates Engineering direction and guidance that a Manager provides to the team. This can take the form of:

• Providing opinion and perspective in technical conversations
• Driving a Technology strategy
• Being hands-on (depends on the context, your history with the organisation and size of the team)
• Creating Engineering and Technical principles
• Driving Engineering and Velocity metrics
• Thought leadership in Technology innovation
• Implementing Engineering process improvements

The behaviours you will typically see of a Engineering Leader strong in Technology leadership is:

1. He/she knows what ‘Good looks like’ from a tech perspective
2. Feels at home in technical conversations
3. Loves talking to engineers about tech debt and code improvement
4. Not afraid to look at code and/or PRs etc.

Delivery Leadership

Delivery Leadership is the ability for a Manager to drive an initiative / project to completion. This typically involves:

• Running and executing Scrum (or Scrum of Scrum) type ceremonies
• Tracking progress of initiatives
• Driving refinement, planning, and roadmapping
• Reporting on risks, dependencies, and blockers
• Removing blockers
• Estimating and sizing initiatives
• Keeping the team accountable of deadlines where necessary

Typical behaviours of someone strong in Delivery is:

1. Feels at home in planning and refinement workshops
2. Pro-actively manages dependencies
3. Runs milestone and check-in meetings
4. Collates dashboards and reports on progress of projects

People Leadership

These are Coaching, Mentoring, Organisational and Change management skills of an Engineering leader. Activities that fall into this area include:

• 1:1s — Coaching, Mentoring, and creating Development plans
• Aligning product development to individual development goals
• Clear and concise communication
• Change management
• Creating and Engaging culture and environment
• Creating a sense of Psychological safety
• Conflict resolution

Typical behaviours of someone strong in People leadership:

1. Strongly value 1:1 (and will prioritise these over other meetings)
2. Love driving meetings where engagement is important
3. Take a deep interest in Team health surveys

As I mentioned there are three focus areas for Engineering Leaders. It’s hard to juggle all of them. I rarely come across an Engineering leader who is excels in all areas. But you can still be an awesome Leader with just 2. Let me explain …

Over-indexing in One Area

Let’s start by explaining what happens to team culture and performance when an Engineering leader focusses on ONE area of the Trifecta.

Under-performing leaders typically over-index in one area. From experience the individual who excels at ONE of the leadership focus areas leaves an immense burden to their direct reports to balance the weaker areas. Let’s explore what typically happens when a leader invests in one pillar of the Engineering Leadership Trifecta :

The Technology Leader

The Technology leader focusses on the code quality, practices and developer experience over all else. This can leave Engineers feeling a lack of growth and development. It can also make Engineers feel like they aren’t adding value for the Customer. The pure Tech leader often misses deadlines in favour of building the ‘perfect solution’.

The People Leader

The People leader in my experience focusses on keeping the team Happy. This might seem like a good thing. But a pure People Leader typically fixes the symptoms of a broken system ie. Terrible developer experience, and/or Tech debt, or inability to deliver on time. The people leader will attempt to fix problems in Tech debt and Processes by overcompensating in keeping engineers happy with short term incentives and/or superficial attempts to fix culture.

In the short term the People leader can be amazing (especially for those on her/his team). However, lack of investment in technology and governance leads to suboptimal business performance results in the long term.

The Delivery Leader

The Delivery leader is great at getting stuff done but does it at the cost of team health and code quality. If you were to pick one focus area this is probably the worst from a team health perspective. The Delivery leader is often loved by stakeholders and sponsors because they deliver on time. However, often the Engineers feel burnt out because they don’t get time to build quality solutions, AND they are driven towards tight deadlines.

In saying the above I’ve never seen a Leader who can excel in all areas of Engineering leadership Trifecta. Highest performing individuals will perform well in two areas of Technology, Delivery and People leadership.

You only need 2

I rarely find someone who excels in all Technology, Delivery and People leadership. Even the most talented individuals will have strengths and weaknesses across these areas. In my experience I find high performing individuals to excel in two areas of the Engineering Leadership Trifecta.

However, this still means that an Engineering leader has to be aware of their weakness. An Engineering leader needs to know enough of their weakest area to know how to mitigate the shortcomings. This could look like multiple activities depending on your context and environment but here are some examples:

• Hiring the Skills and Leaders in your weakest area
• Up-skilling the team in your weakest area
• Up-skilling yourself to mitigate the gaps in the short term

The premise is that people can’t be good in all three but they can excel in two — if we look at leaders who excel in two we can characterise them in three different groups (the intersections of the Venn diagram above).

The Engineering Leader Personas

There are typically Three personas in Engineering Leadership

There are Three personas in Engineering leadership:

1. Visionary Leader
2. Executor Leader
3. Adaptive Leader

Let’s explore the strengths , weaknesses and organisations to which each leader is best suited.

Visionary

The visionary leader is a trailblazer, steering the team towards innovation and excellence. They see the broader landscape and inspire others to join them on the journey.

Strengths:

• Inspiration and Motivation: A visionary leader excels in inspiring and motivating their team, fostering a positive work culture.
• Informed Decision-Making: With technical prowess, they make informed decisions that align with the overall vision of the organisation.

Weaknesses:

• Risk of Micromanagement: A focus on both people and technical aspects may lead to the temptation of micromanagement.
• Challenging Detail-Oriented Tasks: Ability to balance big-picture vision with the details may pose challenges in meticulous tasks.

This type of leader is best suited to an organisation which needs a technology strategy and has to rally a team around the strategy. Typically the organisation has significant tech debt and does not have a path or direction to get out of the vicious cycle of tech debt.

Executor

The strategic executor is a technically astute leader who combines expertise with strategic thinking. They ensure projects are not only technically sound but also delivered efficiently.

Strengths:

• Technical Expertise: Guides the team through technical challenges, making informed decisions.
• Optimised Processes: Optimises processes for efficient project delivery, minimising risks.

Weaknesses:

• Communication Challenges: May face challenges in effective communication with team members who lack a deep technical background.
• People Dynamics: Balancing technical excellence with people management can be demanding.

The Executor is best suited to a company that has a Technology strategy but doesn’t have the Engine to execute. This leader can establish the appropriate practices and governance to guide the team towards the business’ strategic goals.

Adaptive

The adaptive leader is a people-centric strategist, capable of steering the team through challenges with a focus on efficient processes and a resilient work culture.

Strengths:

• Team Dynamics: Masters the art of team dynamics, fostering collaboration and resolving conflicts effectively.
• Efficient Processes: Ensures processes are streamlined for optimal project delivery, reducing bottlenecks.

Weaknesses:

• Potential Lack of Technical Insight: May lack the deep technical insight needed for certain decision-making.
• Innovation Challenges: Striking a balance between established processes and fostering innovation can be a delicate task.

The Adaptive leader is best suited to an environment and organisation which has strong Technology leadership within the team, and there is significant People debt. By People Debt I mean there is lack of growth and development of Engineers, and the Team engagement is low. This leader finds the fine balance between keeping the team happy and executing the business strategy.

Wrap up

We explored the Trifecta of Engineering Leadership: Technology, People and Delivery. We have established that a high performing Engineering leader typically has strengths in two areas of the Trifecta. This leaves us with some typical Engineering Leader personas which comprise of the Visionary, Executor and Adaptive leader. Each persona have their strengths and weaknesses. Each persona also is better suited to some business and environments compared to others.

If you are an aspiring leader it’s good to know that you don’t have to be great at everything, but you should excel in 2 areas of the Engineering Leadership trifecta.
If you are an Engineering leader I hope you have identified your persona and how to overcome the weaknesses of the same.