Leadership & People
Doer to Leader
Four months into your first management role, Meera asks what you'd do. You could fix it in one call. That's exactly what Sandhya warned you against.
- You
- Engineering Manager
- Across the table
- Meera Iyer, Software Engineer, ClearSight Systems
He speaks first.
I've tried everything. Four detailed emails in two weeks, and the product team just ignores them. Everything is stuck, and the go-live is in five weeks. I know you know Nikhil. Can you just tell me what you'd do?
The brief comes after you sign in.
The situation
You could fix it in one call.
Four months into your first management job, Meera Iyer asks what you would do. At ClearSight you were the engineer people fetched when something had to get done. You still can. Sandhya warned you that taking the work back is the failure.
You are her manager. The fix is in your hands. The job is no longer to be the person who does it.
- You know the answer and she asked for it.
- Your own boss already told you not to take the work back.
- Doing it yourself would feel like help.
The session
About twenty minutes.
You sign in with your email, read the brief, and have the conversation. A short reflection comes first. Then the coaching debrief, on what you did. The transcript stays with the session. You do not see a score.
- Email sign-in
- Coaching debrief
- Up to 22 turns
Before you start
What people ask.
Who am I in this conversation?
You're the Engineering Manager, four months in. Meera Iyer is on your team and stuck on a problem she could use help thinking through. You get the full brief after you sign in.
Do I need engineering management experience to practise this?
No. The brief describes the situation on her plate. You're practising coaching when solving it yourself is faster and wrong.
What do I leave with?
A transcript of what you actually said, and a coaching debrief on what it cost you. You answer a short reflection before that debrief appears. You do not see a score.
Can a team run the same scenario?
Yes. Each person gets their own conversation. A pilot is how a cohort starts: same brief, separate transcripts, one place for the programme lead to read them.
Beside this one