Leadership advice · Mentoring and feedback
How engineering leaders mentor and give feedback
How the leaders we interviewed coach their people, run one-on-ones and deliver feedback that leads somewhere.
Interviews
Questions we asked
Asked on camera at our meetups. Where more than one leader answered, the answers are side by side. Transcripts are lightly edited for reading.
How do you approach mentoring and coaching your team members to help them grow in their roles?
2 leaders answered this one.
“We put them in situations where they're in a position to succeed, and they're challenged as well.”
Read the full answer
What we do is we put them in situations where they're in a position to succeed, and they're challenged as well. So, little by little. For example, if you want to be a leader, we'll ask you: do you want to be a leader? Some people don't. They'll say, no, I don't really want to be a leader. But if you do, we'll put you in a role where you're on a path to leadership, with a kind of progression.
So today, or this month, you have to do these things that are maybe outside your current capabilities. You push it a little bit, push it a little bit. And then you evaluate and assess, the usual way. You look at what you've done, you talk about it, you assess what you want. Sometimes they don't want it. Some will say, "Actually, I don't want this," and that's okay. But some will say, "Okay, let's keep going." And then you course correct.
“One of the questions that I ask my team is, what is their motivation and what do they see themselves achieving in the next few years?”
Read the full answer
One of the questions that I ask my team is, what is their motivation and what do they see themselves achieving in the next few years? That way I can tailor-fit how I motivate them, and discuss with them how their work is going to be impactful on their overall personal goals. That's usually how I take it, and so far, it's very effective.
What are the best practices when it comes to one-on-ones?
“Especially [in] Filipino culture, they don't often share. They often say, "It's okay." … So probe a lot more.”
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The first thing that you will notice when having one-on-ones with people, especially in Filipino culture, they don't often share. They often say, "It's okay." "How was the sprint?" "It was okay." That sort of thing. The best practices in such a case are really just good communication practices, sometimes even just good conversational practices. So probe a lot more.
Have a good list of the typical pain points that affect the team. For example, you know that ticket quality is not always perfect. You know there are typical technical issues. Ask pointed questions: How was the ticket quality this sprint? Were there any technical issues? Did you have problems dealing with certain people? When you ask pointed questions like that, they start to think about things that concretely happened, and that gets the stories going. The conversation flows and they're much more relaxed.
Offer an environment that's very engaging and very safe. Make sure confidentiality is paramount, so they know that anything they share, they can share freely. When the conversation is free-flowing, that's where you see what happened during the sprint, what the real pain points were. You see it in their communication styles: what exactly strikes a nerve, and what went well. Be sure to ask about the positives as well.
Then follow up. It's just conversational practice. Echo: repeat their language back to them. If they say, "Something happened that wasn't so okay," you just ask, "Ah, not so okay?" And of their own accord, they'll bring out the issues. So I find it's really just good conversational practice in general.
How do you handle performance evaluations and feedback for your team members?
“It's important to not just give feedback about what you're doing now, but also, what are the next steps? Because without the next steps, they'll just be lost.”
Read the full answer
For performance evaluations, it's really about being honest and open about the feedback. But you also have to deliver the feedback in a positive tone so that it doesn't get misconstrued, because otherwise people will become defensive. You want them to be open about it, whether it's good or bad. There are ways to say it properly.
In performance evaluations, you really have to be honest: this is your performance, this is how you've been doing, where can we go next? So it's important to not just give feedback about what you're doing now, but also, what are the next steps? Because without the next steps, they'll just be lost.
Takes
Short takes
Clips edited down to the answer, labelled with what they're about.
Take · On mentorship
As a mentor, you also learn from the feedback and sharing that you get from your teammates.
Read the full transcript
For me, mentorship plays a very big role for any kind of leader. One, you need to be able to motivate your team and pass on what you have learned throughout the years in your practice, whether that's engineering, management, technology or learning. And by doing mentorship, you don't only impart knowledge, skills and abilities to your team. As a mentor, you also learn from the feedback and sharing that you get from your teammates.
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