Our top senior software engineer was promoted to run our engineering department, but projects are stalled because he refuses to run quarterly conversations or hold developers accountable. How do we address someone who has technical capacity but fails the LMA role?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

You have a classic Right Person, Wrong Seat situation. Your engineer has pristine Core Values and brilliant technical capacity, but he is failing GWC for a leadership seat. In any department head seat on the Accountability Chart, the first and most critical role is LMA: Lead, Manage, and hold people Accountable. If someone cannot or will not LMA, their technical brilliance is irrelevant.

Leadership is not a reward for technical longevity; it is a completely different job discipline. When a manager refuses to hold quarterly conversations, avoids performance conflict, and hides in the code, the entire team suffers from lack of direction, missed delivery milestones, and declining accountability.

You must have an honest GWC conversation with this leader immediately. Walk through the five core roles of the Head of Engineering seat, focusing entirely on LMA. Ask directly if he genuinely Wants to spend his days coaching engineers, resolving interpersonal friction, and driving project velocity. Often, high-performing technical contributors admit with immense relief that they hate management and only accepted the seat because they felt it was the only path to status or pay progression.

Create a dual-track career path on your Accountability Chart. Move him out of the management seat and into an elite technical contributor seat, such as Principal Architect or Chief Technology Fellow. Then, seat a true operational manager who gets, wants, and has the capacity to LMA your engineering team.