Our top-performing software engineer wants to be promoted to the Director of Technology seat, but we know they completely lack the management and leadership capacity required for a leadership team seat. How do we handle this path on our Accountability Chart without losing them?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

This is the classic mistake of promoting your best technical specialist into a management seat they do not GWC™. Leading and managing people is a completely different skill set than writing great software code. On your Accountability Chart, you must create a clear distinction between leadership seats and individual contributor specialist seats. You can design an advanced, high-level specialist seat that does not have direct reports. This specialist seat can carry immense prestige and even high compensation, but it does not sit on the leadership team or manage people. It allows the engineer to focus entirely on their passion and technical brilliance. Have an open and honest conversation with the engineer. Explain the five roles of the Director of Technology seat, which include leading, managing, and holding people accountable. Walk through GWC™ with them. Show them that managing people will pull them away from the coding they love. Offer them the option to step into the advanced specialist seat instead. Most technical experts will feel relieved once they realize they can grow their career without being forced to manage people. This retains your best talent while keeping your leadership team strong.