Coaching Lighthouse

A few years into coaching engineers, crystallizing this for myself.

Feedback

Adopt Radical Candor. Care personally, but challenge directly. Most people drift toward empathy without challenge (ruinous) or challenge without empathy (obnoxious). You need the intersection.

Inclusion

The loudest voice fills the vacuum. Introverted team members often have the best technical insights but the least desire to fight for airtime. Your job is to moderate the volume.

Psychological Safety

Blameless postmortems are non-negotiable. Assume good intent, especially in remote/async work where tone is lost.

Emotional Intelligence

Data isn’t just on the dashboard, it’s in the room. Watch for disengagement signals (silence, crossed arms). If you feel triggered, pause. Replace your reaction with a clarifying question.

Self Awareness

Normalize “I don’t know.” Validate your own assumptions by asking “What if I’m wrong?” If you hide your blind spots, your team will hide theirs.

Conflict Resolution

Move from what to why. If two engineers are deadlocked on implementation, use a “time-boxed experiment.” Prototype both for 3 days and let the metrics pick the winner.

Maker to Multiplier

The hardest mental shift. Your code is no longer the product. The team is the product. (See: Pat Kua’s Maker vs Multiplier).