As an engineering leader I do a large number of 1-1s on a daily basis. It is both my duty and pleasure to stay in touch with all the devs and managers on my team on a regular basis and hear from them.
Unsurprisingly, I often find my 1-1s revolve around career, impact, promotions and company plans. In my opinion - this is a good sign and a sign of a healthy team/company.
Motivated individuals should always be asking themselves how they could be more impactful. Excellent engineers I have mentored or worked alongside always want to crack the magical balance of
Personally delivering more,
Motivating/influencing folks around them to be better,
Becoming a good leader and
… not burning out.
A lot of LinkedIn posts, blogs and coaches give you a quick summary of ‘what successful people do’ or the ‘7 leadership principles to keep in mind’ or the ‘perfect meal plan for successful engineers’. Those posts are usually never wrong - just not that helpful.
They are a bit like telling you to ‘sleep well, eat well and exercise regularly for good health’. All of us (I hope!) know these to be the integral ingredients of a healthy life - what we lack is the structure to help us break down those goals into something that we can practice in our daily life.
Gyms and fitness gurus make a good and honest living breaking down fitness goals for people and help them achieve those goals. There are even coaches for high level executives to help them achieve their company goals.
‘Regular’ engineers and managers (such as myself), however, have to rely on books, blogs, newsletters and mentorship to start doing some structured thinking to maximize their careers. After 12+ years of working in a few different companies and continents - I decided to put together my own book blog newsletter, to add to that publicly available resource list.
Over the next few months, I hope to write down some of the things that I practice on a regular basis to ‘structure’ my professional life and provide my company, my team, my manager with my best possible self - without (and this part is important) burning out or ignoring my personal life.
I hope these articles act as good jumping off points for your own 1-1s with your managers.