The importance of mentoring in engineering leadership - part 2
Welcome back to our series on the power of mentorship in engineering leadership. In Part 1, I shared my initial journey as a mentee. Now, I’ll share my path to becoming a mentor and how mentorship has influenced me while moving into a manager of managers role.
Becoming a Mentor Within My Company
After a few years of being a line manager, I understood the expectations for the role and felt ready to share my findings with others.
I got to participate in the same mentorship program I mentioned in the previous post but as a mentor this time. A new manager, eager to learn, asked me if I could mentor her. I was flattered by this request, a bit nervous, and curious to know her questions.
I remember vividly our first meeting. She had questions similar to mine when I became a manager. Her first question: “How do I know if I’m doing well as a manager?”. I remember bringing up my learnings from “High Output Management” - a classic management book written by Andy Grove — “you are evaluated mostly based on your team's output, so you need to make sure you enable your team to succeed. You need to balance technical excellence with people management and strategy execution”.
An unexpected question she posed was, “How do you manage someone more experienced or technically adept than yourself?” Until then, all my reports had been less experienced than me, so I had to pause and share my thoughts. “I candidly haven’t had this experience yet, but I think you need to set the expectations with your reports as to what is expected from them and what they should expect from you. You should expect them to lead the technical side of things, and they should expect you to drive their career and give them opportunities. It’s like a partnership.”
I was reflecting on a new problem that, sooner or later, would happen to me.
She nodded, and she replied, “Makes sense. Would you tell them I’m learning as a new manager, and I want to collaborate with you on the goals you want to achieve?” I replied, “Yes, exactly. Just be open and transparent with them and express that you want to help them.”
I liked how she suggested transparency and openness. We had a constructive brainstorming session. It was also a good learning conversation to clearly understand what to do if the same situation happened to me in the future.
This was an eye-opening experience on how being a mentor does not mean having all the answers. Your role is to share your thoughts, experiences, help guide solutions to specific problems, and actively listen to your mentee. In some situations, like the one just described, you will also learn from a new condition you haven’t thought about.
Getting mentored as a new manager of managers
Becoming a manager of managers was also another critical turning point in my career. Given my previous positive experience as a mentee, I sought a mentor again. I had a good relationship with my skip level, and luckily, he was happy to help me figure out the new challenges.
Once, I asked him, “I have this manager who is very rigorous with Scrum methodologies (for example, using story point estimation every two weeks with burndown charts). I’m wondering if he is too strict with his approach. I never used burndown charts when I managed teams, and I always pushed on the big picture during the weekly check-ins.”
My mentor asked me, “Does he deliver on time?” and I replied, “Well, yes”. Without hesitation, my mentor smiled and said, “Why do you care what your manager does with the team? His output is his team’s output, and people execute in different ways..” I paused. That sentence reminded me of what I had taught my old mentee when she became a new manager. I nodded and smiled. “True, it makes lots of sense.”. My skip level expanded on his previous questions: “Each team is different, and different sauces are required depending on the timing, composition, etc. Don’t get too stuck on how your manager handles his/her team, but focus on setting goals and expectations.” This was a very inspirational moment, teaching me to appreciate different approaches while focusing on end goals.
Again, mentorship was tremendously helpful in growing into this new role. Especially in preparation or during a turning point in my career, mentorship has been able to expedite my learning and adaptability.
Mentoring experienced managers
Later on, at a different company, I had the opportunity to mentor an experienced manager looking to become a manager of managers in another department from mine.
I remember his first (direct) question: “I have ten people reporting to me — how do I convince my manager to give me a headcount for a manager in my team? “. I smiled, “Yes, it’s not straightforward”. I paused, thinking it took me years to make that transition. Knowing that asking for an additional headcount is not always the easiest thing to do, I asked: “If you look inside your team, do you have anyone who expressed interest in management?”. He shook his head. “Unfortunately not. Everyone is very focused on engineering tasks.”. I asked another question: “Who are the people you trust the most and your go-to in the team?” He said: “I have two people who are very senior, but I don’t want to push towards management because they are very critical around execution and they have lots of domain context”.
That’s where I felt like sharing a personal experience was valuable: “I’ll share something with you. I didn’t know I wanted to become a manager until I got asked to do it, and my manager started to delegate to me running standups. Have you considered delegating some responsibilities to one of those two people and seeing if they enjoy any of those activities?” He answered immediately: “Yes, but what if one starts writing less code? The team's productivity will decrease, and we might be operationally in trouble.” I smiled: “Yes, that is a risk,” I went into brainstorming mode: “What about encouraging them to share more knowledge with the team in case any of them enjoys non-engineering activities?” He paused, and he added: “Yes, I guess I could try that”. Without interruptions, I asked him another question: “Does one of your senior people enjoy mentoring or processes the most?”. He added: “Yes, one of them receives good praises from the team for being extremely empathetic.” I concluded: “There you go, maybe start with him and let me know how things go in the next sessions.”
Even in this case, it was rewarding to help somebody, and what we discussed was helpful for my mentee. Of course, only some of your suggestions always end up working smoothly. For example, in this case, the two senior people were interested in something other than engineering management.
The goal here is to brainstorm ideas, share experiences, and try to help based on your knowledge.
Becoming a mentor externally
A few years ago, I thought seeing people's problems outside my daily workplace could have been interesting, so I expanded my mentoring experience as a side activity. I started mentoring engineers aspiring to become managers or new engineering managers on a platform called PlatoHQ. Initially, I offered mentoring as a free service, but I decided to switch to revenue-share platforms the more this occupied my time.
Currently, I use Mentorcruise. You can find my profile here. It’s a great experience to help people from all around the world grow in their management career — E.g., talking about how to grow into the role of Director of Engineering, how to grow as a manager of managers, how to measure the productivity of a team, how to motivate your team, etc.
At the same time, I also use different platforms to seek mentorship myself.
It’s all about learning, from your mentees and from your mentors.
Main Takeaways
Continuing with my experience as a mentee and becoming a mentor myself made me learn new skills:
As a mentor, you need to have enough experience to guide and give meaningful advice to your mentee. You must have done the job for a few years to gain enough experience.
As a mentor, you don’t have to know all the answers. You can brainstorm with your mentee and offer your take based on your experiences. Sometimes, you might have to get outside your comfort zone.
Mentorship can expedite your learning, especially during a career turning point.
As a mentor, you might receive tough questions, and they might not have straightforward answers. Ask the right questions and develop the conversation constructively.
If you enjoy mentorship, there are revenue-share platforms where you can mentor people and find mentorship.
You can always play the roles of mentor (as a giver) and mentee (as a receiver). It’s all about learning.
Conclusion
Mentoring has been a constant thread throughout my career, from a young engineer to a manager of managers. The guidance, knowledge, and support of mentors have been invaluable.
Remember, your journey in your career is continuous, and mentoring can be your guiding light along the way.
This is Part 2 of a series. Missed Part 1? Find it here. For further reading, check out “The Best Leaders Are Great Teachers” and “The Best Mentorships Help Both People Grow“ from Harvard Business Review (HBR).