Avoiding Ego-Driven Decisions in Engineering Leadership

Your ego is hurting your team more than you realize. But you probably don’t see it. Ego is sneaky. It shows up in ways you don’t expect. It makes you: Dismiss feedback too quickly. Micromanage instead of delegate. Focus on being right over getting it right. Avoid difficult conversations to protect your pride. Take credit instead of giving it. And the worst part? Your team won’t tell you. They’ll just disengage. They’ll stop bringing ideas. They’ll play it safe instead of taking initiative. That’s how teams fall apart. Here’s how to spot ego creeping in: •You always have the final say. If no one challenges you, they might fear you. •You feel defensive when questioned. Instead of listening, you’re looking to prove a point. •You don’t ask for help. Leaders who never ask for input are limiting growth. So, what can you do? 1. Start with self-awareness. 2. Get comfortable with feedback, even when it stings. 3. Lead with curiosity, not certainty. Strong leadership isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about creating space for better ones. Where have you seen ego get in the way at work?

Leadership is an art, a skill that needs constant honing. It's not about commanding and dictating, it's about listening and taking action. Consider this scenario: Your team presents you with an innovative idea that they've spent weeks perfecting. As the leader, do you wave your magic wand and alter the entire workings of it because it doesn't fit your personal preferences? The answer should be a resounding NO. You might be thinking, "Why not? It's my company, my ship to steer." True, but remember, your team members aren't just mindless drones. They're intelligent, creative individuals who've been entrusted to bring their expertise to the table. When we tinker carelessly with their contributions, we're not just altering a project, we're diminishing their confidence and stifling their creativity. The result? A team that’s afraid to take risks and innovate, leading to stagnation. Being a good leader means valuing the work done by others, even if it doesn't entirely match your vision. It means knowing when to take a step back and let the professionals do their job. It's about trusting your team and their expertise. After all, leadership is not about creating followers, but more leaders. So, the next time you feel the urge to meddle in your team's work, think twice. Listen, understand, and act in a way that benefits the whole team, not just you. That's leadership. It's not about ego, it's about progress.

How I stopped being the hero of my dev team. Early in my leadership career, I thought being the most capable engineer meant I had to solve every hard problem. Architecture. Debugging. Hiring decisions. Prioritization. The team would come to me, and I’d just handle it. At first, it felt efficient. Eventually, it became exhausting. And I didn’t realize it then, but I was creating the very dependency I was frustrated by. I had become the bottleneck. The wake-up call was burnout. Constant context-switching. No space to think. And a quiet fear that my team couldn’t succeed without me. But the truth was harder: They couldn’t succeed without me because I hadn’t built the conditions for them to. So I made a shift. I stopped measuring success by how often I stepped in. And started measuring it by how often I didn’t have to. I let go of the need to have the best answer. And focused on helping others build the confidence and clarity to find answers on their own. Today, I’m not the hero. I’m the environment. And my job is to make sure the team has what they need to move without waiting for me. That’s the only way to scale. That’s the only way to lead. Are you tired of being the hero? Or are you ready to build the system instead?

Ego distorts judgment before it damages results Ego does not usually announce itself. It shows up as certainty, defensiveness, and resistance to revision. Research in leadership psychology shows that ego-driven decision-making reduces accuracy, slows learning, and increases exposure to avoidable risk. The impact is gradual, which makes it easy to miss until results deteriorate. What research shows Studies on executive cognition indicate that leaders with elevated status receive less corrective feedback. As feedback decreases, confidence increases faster than accuracy. This gap is a reliable predictor of strategic error. Research also shows that leaders who equate disagreement with disrespect systematically underutilize available information. Study-based situations Situation 1: Strategic blind spots Research found that leaders who dismissed early warnings as negativity or lack of alignment were more likely to experience late-stage failure. Information was available but filtered out. Situation 2: Team silence Studies on psychological safety show that teams stop raising concerns when leaders react defensively. Error detection declines long before performance visibly drops. Situation 3: Overcommitment Research on escalation behavior shows that ego increased commitment to prior decisions even when conditions changed. Leaders framed persistence as strength rather than rigidity. How effective leaders limit ego impact They treat pushback as input They invite disconfirming evidence They separate authority from correctness They monitor defensiveness as a signal Ego does not break systems immediately. It erodes judgment first.

Just watched "Titan: The OceanGate Disaster" on Netflix. The final line hit me: this wasn’t just an engineering failure—it was a culture failure. Stockton Rush, OceanGate’s founder and CEO, had a bold vision: to democratize deep-sea exploration. But that vision became untouchable. Criticizing the approach became synonymous with criticizing him personally. Former chief pilot Dave Lochbridge was fired after raising safety concerns, and over time, anyone who challenged the direction either left or was pushed out. OceanGate bypassed third-party safety certification from agencies like DNV, arguing it stifled innovation. They used experimental carbon fiber materials against industry norms and ignored repeated warnings about hull fatigue and structural integrity. The result? A catastrophic implosion on June 18, 2023, killing all five people onboard, including Rush himself. This story echoes what Amy Edmondson has long researched around psychological safety—where team members feel safe to speak up, especially about risk. She’s pointed to NASA’s Columbia disaster, where engineers suspected damage to the shuttle but stayed silent during final briefings. The culture didn’t support dissent. The hierarchy silenced truth. Here’s what we can learn as leaders: - Detach your ego from the mission. You are not your product. - Normalize dissent. Especially from the smartest, most principled voices. - Invite challenge early and often. Don’t wait for a wake-up call. - Set red lines for safety, ethics, and integrity. They are non-negotiable. To do great things, yes, we need vision. But we also need humility. Especially when human lives—or entire organizations—are on the line.

One of the most dangerous things in engineering and design isn’t a lack of knowledge. It’s ego. I’ve felt it in my own work. After enough projects, enough approvals, enough “wins,” it’s easy to start believing your first answer is the right one. That your experience alone is enough. That you don’t need to ask the extra question. Ego shows up quietly. It makes you defend instead of explore. It makes you talk instead of listen. And in our field where details drive cost, safety, and long-term performance that mindset can have real consequences. ⚠️ Confidence, on the other hand, is essential. We have to make decisions with incomplete information. We have to guide clients. We have to put our name on plans and stand behind them. 💼 The balance between confidence and ego is something I work on constantly. For me, that looks like: • Staying curious even on projects that feel familiar • Asking, “What am I missing?” before finalizing a solution • Inviting pushback from architects, contractors, and reviewers • Saying “I may be wrong” more often than “I know” • Remembering that the best designs I’ve been part of were true team efforts 🤝 In civil engineering and land development, the loudest voice in the room rarely produces the best outcome. The projects I’m most proud of came from collaboration, humility, and a shared commitment to getting it right. Confidence builds trust. Ego erodes it. I’m still learning that balance every day and honestly, that’s probably a good thing. 🌱 #CivilEngineering #Leadership #Design #ProfessionalGrowth #Collaboration #Placemaking

I wasted 6 months trying to be the smartest person in the room, and it nearly cost us everything. Here’s what changed: I stopped leading with answers and started leading with questions. As a leader with years in finance and operations, I’ve learned this the hard way, collective intelligence outperforms individual brilliance every time. Research from MIT’s Center for Collective Intelligence shows that teams leveraging shared input consistently make better, faster decisions than top-down leaders working alone. Action 1: Ask better questions immediately. Instead of giving direction, I started asking: “What are we missing?” “Where could this fail?” “Who sees this differently?” Within 30 days, engagement increased. Within 90 days, execution improved. Not theory, measurable results. Action 2: Create structured input loops. I implemented a simple rule in meetings: every major decision required at least 3 perspectives before moving forward. What happened? Fewer blind spots. Stronger alignment. Faster buy-in. Action 3: Reward contribution, not just outcomes. When people know their thinking matters, they show up differently. Innovation is no longer forced, it becomes natural. Here’s the conflict most leaders won’t admit: You can either protect your ego or unlock your team’s intelligence. You don’t get both. The desire is clear, better results, stronger teams, scalable leadership. The path is simple, but not easy. If you want to lead at a higher level, stop being the answer and start building the system that finds the best one. I’ve seen this shift transform underperforming teams into high-functioning units in under a quarter. Now it’s your move: In your next meeting, ask one question instead of giving one answer, and watch what happens. #LeadershipDevelopment #CollectiveIntelligence #ExecutiveLeadership

Ego is sneaky. It hides behind big ideas, strong opinions, and even good intentions. It whispers, “I’m right,” “I know better,” or worse—>“I’m the most important voice here.” But in the world of product teams, ego is a roadblock. It stops us from building the best products we can. Let’s break this down. What Is Ego? Ego is the part of us that wants to protect our identity. It’s the need to feel important, smart, or in control. It’s not inherently bad—ego keeps us motivated and driven. But when ego takes over, collaboration takes a hit. Instead of focusing on the best outcome, we focus on being right. And that’s where the trouble starts. How Ego Shows Up On the Team Someone dominates conversations, shuts down ideas, or clings to “their way.” In the Company: Departments prioritize their agendas over the shared goal. With Partners: Vendors push their solutions without considering the context. Even with Users: We assume we know what they need, without listening deeply. Ego blinds us to possibilities. It makes us defensive instead of curious. It turns progress into a tug-of-war. When ego runs the show, meaningful work gets sidelined. Ideas don’t get fully explored. Conflicts turn personal instead of productive. Teams spend more time justifying decisions than improving them. And the product? It suffers. At its worst, ego creates a toxic environment where people feel unheard and undervalued. Nobody wants to build great work in that kind of space. Here’s the good news You can spot ego. And you can take practical steps to diffuse it. 1. Align on a Shared Goal Start every project by defining success together. A clear, shared goal gives the team something bigger than any one person’s opinion. 2. Prioritize Listening Listen to understand, not to respond. Encourage everyone to speak and actually hear them out. Sometimes the best idea comes from the quietest voice in the room. 3. Test Assumptions Don’t argue over opinions validate them. Turn debates into experiments. Let data, prototypes, or user feedback guide the way forward. 4. Create Psychological Safety Make it safe to fail. And mean it! When people feel secure, they let go of ego-driven defensiveness. This creates space for vulnerability, learning, and growth. 5. Let the Best Idea Win It doesn’t matter where the idea comes from. What matters is what moves the product forward. When the team agrees to leave their egos at the door, collaboration thrives. Let’s Build Better Together Ego is natural, but it’s not inevitable. With self-awareness and intentional practices, product teams can rise above it. When we leave ego behind, we make room for creativity, collaboration, and meaningful progress. At Crema that’s what we’re all about. Because when product teams thrive, the products they build make a real impact. So…what’s stopping you from checking your ego at the door?

9 out of 10 engineering leaders reverse their emotional intelligence at the worst possible moment. They micromanage when teams need space. They vanish when teams need technical leadership. The pattern shows up everywhere: The VP who rewrites code during sprint planning but goes silent when production burns. The engineering director who can't let teams architect solutions but disappears during crisis calls. This costs you everything: Your best engineers leave because they can't grow, then watch you vanish when things break. Your team's trust erodes. Your credibility becomes situational incompetence. Here's what changed my understanding completely: 3 AM. Huge retail client's entire payment system crashes during their biggest sales day. $50K bleeding per hour. Team paralyzed. Junior developer hyperventilating. Senior architect stuck in analysis paralysis for 2 hours. As Solutions Architect, I had a choice: Stay in my "leadership lane" and coach from the sidelines. Or violate every management book and dive into the code myself. I grabbed my laptop. Found the database deadlock in 20 minutes that they'd missed for hours. System restored. Revenue bleeding stopped. Client saved their biggest sales day. But the real impact wasn't the fix. The team watched a leader step in without blame during the moment that mattered most. That night taught me the framework that separates adaptive leaders from rigid ones: Your emotional intelligence requirements flip based on the situation. Same leader. Completely different EQ skills. CRISIS MODE - Lead from the front: ↳ Self-awareness: Recognize when your technical skills matter more than your title ↳ Humility: Code-level problem-solving regardless of organizational chart ↳ Ego management: Solution over status, every single time ↳ Calm under pressure: Your stress becomes their panic - manage it ↳ Technical empathy: Feel the weight of what your engineers are carrying NORMAL OPERATIONS - Lead from the back: ↳ Trust: Your team solves it better when you're not hovering ↳ Patience: Growth happens slower than your impatience wants ↳ Restraint: Keep your hands off the keyboard when fingers itch ↳ Active listening: Hear the problems they're not saying out loud ↳ Psychological safety: Failure becomes learning when you're not judging ↳ Empowerment: Autonomy with availability, not abandonment Get this right: teams innovate fearlessly and execute flawlessly under pressure. Get this wrong: teams stagnate during calm and collapse during crisis. Your comfort zone isn't what your situation requires. Crisis demands technical courage. Innovation demands emotional maturity. Before you step in today, ask yourself: Does this situation need my technical skills or my restraint? ♻�� Share this to your network. 🔔 Follow Dan Tudorache for leadership insights that match what your technical team actually needs right now.

The most limiting leaders I’ve seen weren’t lazy or careless. They were convinced they had to do it all. That belief feels responsible. Until everything starts depending on you. Too many think leadership is about control. I used to believe that too. More decisions. More oversight. More presence at the top. It took me a while to see the truth: The leaders who scale the most impact are often the least visible in the room. Because when everything depends on you, you didn’t build leadership - you built fragility. I’ve seen teams stall under “strong” leaders and accelerate under quieter ones. Not because they worked harder. But because they worked differently. This is the upgrade most leaders miss 👇 1. Create direction, not dependence Clarity replaces permission. Movement replaces waiting - because your why is unmistakable. 2. Design execution - stop chasing it Don't push harder. Fix what makes pushing necessary. 3. Measure success by how replaceable you become If the team freezes when you’re gone, that’s risk - not leadership. 4. Don’t “motivate” - remove friction Most problems aren’t mindset issues. They’re obstacles left in the way. 5. Treat culture as a daily practice, not a slogan What you reward repeats. What you tolerate spreads. 6. Resist the ego trap of being the smartest voice Needing to be right slows progress. It accelerates when you’re willing to be wrong first. 7. Remember what sets standards Policies don’t. Behavior does - especially under pressure. That’s the real shift. From being the engine ... to building engines. From being needed ... to being trusted. From managing work ... to multiplying people. And when you get this right? Your team doesn’t just perform. They own the outcome. ♻ Repost to champion leaders who build leaders. ➕ Follow Mike Leber for daily insights on leadership that build unbeatable teams. Image credit: Eric Partaker — 📌 I’m building a free Leadership Readiness Assessment  + a curated set of leadership insights I’m releasing next Tuesday. Join the waitlist to get it first 👉  https://lnkd.in/dM8Ks7Ns