“What would you say is the single best predictor for success for an engineering leader?”

A friend sent me that question today, and my gut check immediate said “they ask good questions” but that’s only 10% of the story.

What I think folks mess up when hiring engineering leadership is focusing on the engineering part rather than leadership. I empathize with this, because it’s easier to evaluate a resume for similar technical experience and easier to ask technical questions and grade whether you got the expected answers. But hot damn, there’s no faster way to tank an engineering culture than getting this hire wrong, and amateur leadership skills will do it every time.

A degree of technical fluency in your domain is a prerequisite, but let’s admit that’s just tablestakes and the easy part. To me, that reframes the original question to “What’s the most efficient way to evaluate leadership skills?” generally, which gets us back to asking good questions. What’s it mean to ask leadership-grade questions in engineering?

First, they prioritize listening to the voices with more direct context. Second, they are actively building their understanding of the problem set. Crucially, they value those 2 goals over grooming their own image, which could otherwise drive them to either capriciously overrule (to demonstrate they “know best”) or avoid asking questions that let on they don’t understand the entire context yet.

Put another way, they demonstrate vulnerability. There is no greater show of self-confidence than humility about what you don’t know, especially in a hiring process. Being a dismissive know-it-all is simple by comparison. Great leaders know that without anyone telling them.

Originally published August 2023 on LinkedIn