Leadership vs. Management in Engineering

When stepping into an engineering management role, it doesn’t take long to realize that the job isn’t just about overseeing tasks—it’s about balancing management and leadership. These two skill sets are often spoken about interchangeably, but they serve distinct functions.

Harvard Business School professor John Kotter, in his HBR article What Leaders Really Do, highlights the core differences:

• Management is about coping with complexity. It brings stability through structured processes like planning, organizing, and controlling.
• Leadership is about coping with change. It focuses on vision, alignment, and motivation to drive transformation.

Both are critical to success, but they show up in different ways in an engineering manager’s day-to-day work.

Management: Keeping the Engine Running

The management side of engineering leadership is what keeps everything moving smoothly. It ensures the team makes and delivers against commitments, and has the necessary processes in place to execute efficiently. 

Managing an engineering team includes:

• Coping with Complexity: Creating systems and processes that bring order to the chaos of software development.
• Planning and Budgeting: Quarterly planning, estimating workloads, and allocating resources.
• Organizing and Staffing: Hiring engineers, structuring teams, and ensuring the right people are in the right roles.
• Controlling and Problem Solving: Monitoring team progress, resolving roadblocks, and adjusting priorities to stay on track.

What This Looks Like in Engineering Management

An engineering manager’s responsibilities often include:

• Running quarterly planning to define roadmaps and team objectives.
• Ensuring proper estimation and capacity planning so work is realistic.
• Surfacing dependencies to ensure smooth execution across teams.
• Conducting performance reviews to evaluate growth and contributions.
• Protecting the team’s attention by minimizing distractions and shielding engineers from unnecessary meetings.

These activities create stability, allowing engineers to focus on delivering quality software.

Leadership: Driving Change and Growth

Leadership, on the other hand, isn’t about maintaining order—it’s about transformation. Kotter breaks leadership down into three key activities:

• Setting a Direction: Instead of just making plans, leadership means defining where the team should be going.
• Aligning People: Creating buy-in by clearly communicating vision and strategy.
• Motivating and Inspiring: Helping people see their work’s impact, fostering autonomy, and recognizing achievements.

Leadership in Engineering Management

Engineering managers step into leadership when they:

• Coach an engineer toward a promotion by developing their skills and helping them gain visibility.
• Establish a long-term vision for the product, guiding the team beyond just the next sprint.
• Align team goals with company objectives, ensuring engineers understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture.
• Engage the team in goal setting rather than just assigning work, fostering ownership and commitment.

These leadership activities build trust, empower engineers, and create a team that thrives on purpose, not just process.

The Best Engineering Managers Balance Both

While some managers lean too heavily on structure and oversight, and others focus only on vision without execution, the best engineering managers balance both leadership and management. They know when to focus on structure and efficiency and when to step back and empower their team to drive innovation and change.

A Simple Framework: Manager vs. Leader

If you’re new to engineering management, the key takeaway is this: management keeps things running; leadership moves things in a unified direction. The more you intentionally develop both skill sets, the more impactful your role will be.