Unwinding on a Friday evening by having a drink and letting myself hyperfocus a little on engineering management

It's approximately two weeks since I had the realization (as a result of three adjacent conversations that week) that doing engineering management well is deeply aligned with things that I value, and I was preferring to aim for non-management types of leadership specifically due to fear and not alignment with my values or skills

I believe I was first asked if I wanted to manage the team I was on a decade ago. I refused, at the time I said I didn't want to, but privately I was too afraid to even examine the reasons for my refusal

On the other hand, I've found that all of the best things I have done are due to genuine caring and compassion, whether for myself or others, whether for the technical details or for the ways in which humans engage with the work

I think those fears were twofold:

One, that I can never be technical enough, that if I ease up on Hard Technical Skills, I will be deemed useless and thus unemployable. Let's admit it, this is harder for women in tech -- but after some reflection I had to admit that I've been even harder on myself than the world has been

Two, for some of us, wielding power has felt impossibly dangerous. I didn't have models for using power in fair and confident ways. I also wasn't shown how to respond with grace when my use of power was criticized. This has affected me in other ways in life, but it is especially relevant when considering taking on management roles

As opposed to a decade ago, management roles are fewer and more demanding. That's okay. Difficulty makes things meaningful. I'll grow into this