I've been managing engineering teams for over eight years now, and I'll be honest I used to think I was doing it all wrong. While my extroverted colleagues were leading daily standups with infectious energy and jumping into every technical discussion, I found myself hanging back, observing, and only speaking up when I felt I had something genuinely valuable to add.
Turns out, that wasn't a weakness at all.
The Dog Park Revelation
Last weekend, I was watching my neighbor's golden retriever at the dog park. The owner wasn't hovering over the dog, calling out commands every few seconds. Instead, she sat on a bench, keeping one eye on her pet while chatting with other dog owners. But here's the thing she knew exactly when to intervene. When the play got too rough or when her dog wandered too close to the parking lot, she was there in an instant.
That's when it hit me: this is exactly how I manage my team, and it's working better than I ever imagined.
Why I Don't Rush Into Every Fire
Here's something that happened just last month. Our production system went down at 2 AM, and my Slack exploded with messages. Three engineers were already online, each proposing different solutions, voices getting heated about the best approach.
My first instinct? Jump in and take control. But instead, I took five minutes to read through the conversation, understand what they'd already tried, and watch how they were collaborating. By the time I joined the call, they'd already identified the root cause and were implementing a fix. I just asked a couple of clarifying questions and made sure they had what they needed.
The old me would have swooped in immediately, probably slowing them down in the process. Now I've learned that sometimes the best thing you can do as a manager is... nothing. At least not right away.
The Art of Strategic Patience
I learned this lesson the hard way during a particularly tense sprint planning meeting. Two of my senior engineers were butting heads over architecture decisions I'm talking full-on disagreement, with raised voices and everything. Every fiber of my being wanted to jump in and mediate immediately.
But something made me pause. I grabbed my coffee, leaned back, and just listened. Within ten minutes, they'd started finding common ground. By the end of the meeting, they'd come up with a hybrid solution that was actually better than either of their original proposals.
If I'd intervened right away, I would have robbed them of that collaboration and learning experience. Plus, they owned the solution completely because they'd worked it out themselves.
Mistakes Are Features, Not Bugs
Don't get me wrong I'm not talking about letting catastrophic errors slide. But when a junior developer pushed code that broke our staging environment last week, I didn't immediately swoop in with a fix. Instead, I let them work through the debugging process, offering hints when they got stuck.
It took three hours longer than if I'd fixed it myself, but now that developer understands our deployment pipeline inside and out. They won't make that mistake again, and more importantly, they'll be able to help the next person who does.
The Invisible Manager Problem
One of my biggest insecurities used to be that I wasn't "visible" enough as a manager. I'd see other EMs presenting at all-hands meetings, leading architecture reviews, and being the face of their teams. Meanwhile, I was having one-on-one conversations, removing blockers behind the scenes, and making sure my team had what they needed to succeed.
It took me a while to realize that good management often looks like magic from the outside-everything just works, but you can't quite see how. My team ships features on time, handles incidents smoothly, and collaborates well. The fact that they don't need me front and center all the time isn't a bug; it's the whole point.
When Quiet Confidence Wins
Last quarter, during a particularly stressful product launch, while other teams were scrambling with daily crisis meetings and urgent Slack threads, my team just... delivered. We hit our deadlines, the launch went smoothly, and our post-mortem was refreshingly short.
The VP of Engineering asked me afterward what our secret was. The honest answer? I stayed out of their way. I made sure they had clear requirements, removed any organizational obstacles, and trusted them to do what they do best.
The Real Superpower
Here's what I've figured out: the best managers aren't the ones who make all the decisions or solve all the problems. They're the ones who create conditions where their teams can make great decisions and solve problems independently.
As an introverted manager, I don't lead through charisma or constant visibility. I lead through careful observation, strategic intervention, and most importantly genuine trust in my team's abilities. When they succeed, they know it's because of their own skills and hard work, not because their manager swooped in to save the day.
And that makes all the difference.
FALLOW ME
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