The Car And The Helicopter: Working With Emotions As An Engineering Manager

If you’ve recently transitioned from engineering to engineering management, you might think your main job is overseeing the technical aspects of your team’s work.

That’s true, but there’s another task that, if ignored, will also disrupt the workflow: managing your team members’ emotions.

The real reason behind the traffic jam

Working as an engineer is like commuting to work without a navigation app.

You only see up to the next intersection or two and can’t peek around corners. Normally, that’s okay. In fact, knowing what’s happening elsewhere might distract you from driving safely.

But this becomes a problem when there’s a traffic jam — all you see are all the cars piling up. Maybe you can see from where, but little else, so it’s understandable if you get mad.

But being an engineering manager is like being in a traffic helicopter — you can see things from above. So, you know there’s an accident on the next street over, pushing cars onto the main road and causing the traffic jam.

From that perspective, you can give orders to officers on the ground so the road gets unclogged as soon as possible. In other words, as an engineering manager (EM), you see where the issues are and, hopefully, know how to resolve them.

Since your individual contributors (ICs) won’t have that same perspective, it’s easier for them to become upset when something gets delayed or doesn’t work. This means it’s part of your job to manage not only processes but also work with people’s emotions and the team dynamics that come with them.

This requires a mindset shift, especially if you’ve recently transferred from an engineer to engineering manager.

You can’t just drink milk and get away with it anymore

If you’ve seen The Big Lebowski, you’ll remember the part where “The Dude” goes to a corner store to buy milk. He walks in wearing a bathrobe, slippers, and sunglasses, and he reaches into the fridge for the milk and starts drinking it right there. Then he puts it back and leaves.

Sure, the store owner might have some choice words for the Dude, but when you’re a regular person, that’s about as far as the consequences go unless someone calls the police.

Now imagine if Elon Musk or Beyoncé did that — the internet would explode. Conspiracy theories would pop up all over, it would dominate the media for a week, and the person would have to explain themselves.

The same thing happens when you become an EM. You can’t do the same things you did when you were an engineer. But this isn’t about rules or getting away with something. It’s about understanding what you say and do has more weight now than when you were an engineer.

This means you can’t just call people out when they get upset, and you can’t be too direct when giving feedback. Your words have more power (and more power to hurt) than when you were just an engineer.

People look up to you, and the way you talk and act affects the culture (and morale) of the team and company as a whole.

Be gentle, or else

We had a situation once where a team lead called out an engineer for something he did wrong. The team lead was very emotional and direct. He had a good reason, but his approach demotivated the engineer and nearly caused a mental breakdown.

This way of doing things tends to make preexisting anxiety worse. Even in cases of actual underperformance, you still have to give feedback gently. If you push your engineers too far, they’ll start thinking they can’t do anything right.

They may even think they’ll get fired soon or quit just to get it over with. In that case, you went from having an underperforming engineer to a hole in your team that needs filling. Not to mention you’ve negatively and majorly impacted their life, even unintentionally, or the ripple effect it’ll have on your team’s morale or mental state. Plus, you’ll have to redirect resources to make a new hire or pull someone from another team to fill in — all this does is shift the problem around.

It’s just not a good situation in any way.

Even if your team members don’t quit outright, they’ll generally be less motivated or interested in trying new things. They’ll want to stay on the safe side and not take on complicated tasks for fear of consequences if something goes wrong.

Obviously, you want the opposite. Doing so requires maturing and staying in control of yourself.

You have to be the adult, no matter what

I was telling someone recently that resolving fights on the team is like dealing with arguments in a romantic relationship. Both sides get caught up in the moment, and the stakes feel high. No one wants to be the first to give in or compromise, but someone has to be the adult and stop reacting emotionally.

As the manager, you are the adult in the room — it doesn’t matter if you’re mediating between two people or involved in the argument — you need to stay conscious, calm, and show good judgment.

This means you have to curb your emotions even if something angers you. It’s the same with a parent whose toddler starts acting out in the grocery store. The kid can’t help being emotional and it doesn’t make sense to argue with them. You’re an adult and they’re a child and that’s not going to work.

I don’t want to compare team members to children, though — that’s deeply condescending. What I want to say is there’s a difference in power and roles. And it doesn’t make sense for you to become emotional and react because that negatively affects the job you’re there to do, your engineer, and your team as a whole.

This isn’t easy because it takes a lot of energy to move beyond the street view and start looking at things from the traffic helicopter. But this is what you have to practice and, eventually, master.

Solve the Lama’s problems

You set the tone for your team, so any overreaction on your part affects everyone. You need to stay in control.

This sounds simple enough on paper, but it’s never that easy in real life. All the same, I keep thinking about something I read once from the Dalai Lama. He said there are ultimately two types of problems:

Problems you can’t control, so they’re not worth losing sleep about
Problems you can control, so don’t worry — just do something about them

Nowhere in this process are you required to get emotional about what happens next.

When it comes to the first kind of problem, you can’t make it stop.

You can worry about it all you want, but you can’t reverse it. Like when a pandemic comes along or AI develops to a point you have to integrate it or become irrelevant. So you just have to deal with things when the time comes.

If you can deal with the problem, think of concrete steps to move forward.

Give yourself time to get used to the issue so when you share your ideas, you can do it without extra emotion. And then, with a calm mind, address the problem knowing that others might get emotional.

What does this look like in practice? Take someone who isn’t performing well. Going crazy on them is just going to make them go crazy in return. It won’t get you anywhere, and you may end up needing to divert resources into hiring someone new, as mentioned before.

Even if their performance causes headaches, reach out to them calmly and communicate the issues their actions are causing without personal attacks or judgment. Ask the person to suggest ways things can be done differently and agree on some.

If things continue not working out, give them time. Be candid about the amount of time, what you expect to change, and the consequences if things don’t improve. During this time, start preparing the recruitment process so that, if they have to leave, you’re not left hanging.

The only real, predictable element is that everyone makes mistakes once in a while.

If you have ten people on your team, something will go wrong rather often. If you have one hundred people in the company, that scales even more. As the manager, you have to find and keep your inner peace even within that chaos.

The short version: we’ve all been there

Working with emotions isn’t a simple task, especially if you’re an engineering manager who recently transitioned to the role. When you’re an engineer, you feel you have a right to lash out at others for their mistakes (even though you don’t and shouldn’t do that). As an engineering manager, though, it will be your job to responsibly and productively engage with both your and your team’s emotions at work.

Here are things you need to know to manage emotions at work:

Remember, you can’t act the same way you did when you were an engineer
Think about the consequences of emotional outbursts
Be the adult in the room
Do what you can without worrying about what you can’t do

Doing anything else can and will cause your engineers to become upset, and they may even quit. While it’s tempting to let out your anger on them, it causes more work for you and everybody else. It’s much better to do the opposite.