Our head of engineering is our most brilliant developer, but his department is in constant chaos because he hates managing people and ignores his leadership duties. How do we handle a technical genius who wants the leadership seat but refuses to do the actual work of leading, managing, and accountability?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

It is a common mistake to promote your best technical specialist into a leadership seat, only to find that they are a terrible manager. Leading, managing, and accountability, or LMA, is a specific discipline that requires a completely different skill set than technical execution.

You must evaluate your head of engineering using GWC™ for the leadership seat. They might get it and want it, but if they lack the capacity to coach, mentor, and hold their team accountable, they are in the wrong seat. Keeping them there will destroy their department's morale and slow down your operations.

To resolve this, create a dual-career path in your organization. Design a high-level, high-status individual contributor seat on your Accountability Chart, such as Chief Technical Architect. This seat should carry significant influence and compensation but have zero management responsibilities. Move your technical genius into this seat where they can add maximum value. Then, hire or promote a true leader who GWCs the LMA portion of the engineering director seat to manage the team and drive execution.