The Engineering Leader's GuidePractical field-tested lessons for Engineering Leaders
Back to the PillarsSelf-Assessment

Where are you strongest — and where should you focus next?

Eighteen honest questions across the six pillars. Takes about five minutes. You'll get a per-pillar score, a focus recommendation, and a short reading list to start with. Nothing is stored — the result lives only in this browser tab.

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Pillar 01People

People Leadership

Coaching, feedback, career growth, and building trust with the team.

My 1:1s consistently move beyond status into coaching and growth.
Every direct report has a written growth area they and I both agree on.
I give feedback in the moment — not just in reviews.
Pillar 02Execution

Execution Excellence

Planning rituals, scope management, and predictable delivery.

My team ships what it commits to in a quarter without heroics.
We catch scope drift early, before deadlines are at risk.
Prioritization decisions are explicit and repeatable, not political.
Pillar 03Engineering

Technical Judgment

Architectural trade-offs, technical risk, and knowing when to dive deep.

I can evaluate architecture trade-offs even outside my deepest expertise.
My team documents significant technical decisions and revisits them.
I know when to dive deep vs. when to trust the team's judgment.
Pillar 04Strategy

Product & Business Thinking

Connecting engineering work to customer value, revenue, and company strategy.

I can explain how my team's work moves a business metric.
I push back on scope confidently without becoming the blocker.
My updates to executives lead to decisions, not more questions.
Pillar 05Operations

Operational Discipline

Metrics, incident response, on-call, and healthy operating rhythms.

We review a small set of engineering metrics on a monthly cadence.
Post-incident reviews reliably produce action items that ship.
On-call load is fair, humane, and improving over time.
Pillar 06Culture

Culture Building

Ownership, psychological safety, and the norms that outlast any one project.

Engineers on my team take ownership beyond their assigned tickets.
People on the team disagree openly without it becoming personal.
The behaviours I say I value show up in how we actually work.

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