The Engineering Leader

Chapter 14. What Good Looks Like

Over the course of this book, we’ve been on a journey to figure out what your role is and how to do it effectively. We covered what it looks like to DRI your career, how to practice effective self-management, how to build a healthy team ecosystem, and how to get teams delivering and self-improving.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that “good” looks like doing all of these things well, all the time.

It doesn’t. I’m not even sure if that’s possible.

So if “good” doesn’t look like doing everything we discussed perfectly, and it doesn’t look like everyone being happy 100% of the time, what does it look like? And wait, doesn’t the concept of an end state contradict the idea that good teams continuously improve?

Good isn’t static, and it isn’t executing perfection every day. Good is sustainable. Good is a situation you could hand over to someone else without guilt. Good is having sufficient breathing room such that you can figure out what’s next for you. Good is an opportunity to move forward or upward, or just to take a breath.

Good is a team that changes people. It makes them more in and of themselves; it makes them expect more from the places they work subsequently. Good is a team that people will remember being on for the rest of their careers. Good is a team that delivers business value as a matter of course, and growth and learning alongside because it’s the way they want to operate.

This is a chapter about what “good” looks like.

What Good Looks ...