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#189 | How to Lead Engineers Who Don't Want Your Career Path?
Published 2 weeks, 3 days ago
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▶︎ #189 | How to Lead Engineers Who Don't Want Your Career Path?
In this solo episode of the Leman Tech Leadership Podcast, Aleksandra Lemańska takes on a question more leaders are quietly wrestling with: how do you lead engineers who don't want your career path?
The episode opens with a story from one of Alex's mentees, a director who built a strong promotion case for one of her best engineers, only to have him turn it down. Not for money, not for timing, but because he didn't want more people depending on him. Alex names this as a growing pattern across tech teams: leaders offering the only kind of growth they know (more scope, more people, more title) to engineers who are optimizing for something else entirely.
Using Contracting from her CQ Leadership Method, Alex breaks down why this disconnect happens: leaders assume a shared, universal definition of “growth” that was never actually agreed on. She applies PCM to show how the growth conversation needs to shift depending on personality base, from mastery and technical depth, to values-driven work, to variety and stimulation, rather than a single generic script.
Alex closes with a direct challenge: pick one person whose ambitions you've been assuming rather than asking about, and have the real conversation this week.
Mentioned in the episode:
"From Code to People: The CQ Leadership Method That Transforms Technical Experts into Leaders Teams Actually Want to Work For":
https://fromcodetopeople.lemanskills.com/
✉︎ FOLLOW ME ON: ⤵︎
LinkedIn: @aleksandralemanska
TikTok: @aleksandra_lemanska
X: @lemanskills
Startup Community Poznan: @startup-community-poznan-scp
www.lemanskills.com
Join Leadership Pulse! https://lemanskills.com/pulse/
In this solo episode of the Leman Tech Leadership Podcast, Aleksandra Lemańska takes on a question more leaders are quietly wrestling with: how do you lead engineers who don't want your career path?
The episode opens with a story from one of Alex's mentees, a director who built a strong promotion case for one of her best engineers, only to have him turn it down. Not for money, not for timing, but because he didn't want more people depending on him. Alex names this as a growing pattern across tech teams: leaders offering the only kind of growth they know (more scope, more people, more title) to engineers who are optimizing for something else entirely.
Using Contracting from her CQ Leadership Method, Alex breaks down why this disconnect happens: leaders assume a shared, universal definition of “growth” that was never actually agreed on. She applies PCM to show how the growth conversation needs to shift depending on personality base, from mastery and technical depth, to values-driven work, to variety and stimulation, rather than a single generic script.
Alex closes with a direct challenge: pick one person whose ambitions you've been assuming rather than asking about, and have the real conversation this week.
Mentioned in the episode:
"From Code to People: The CQ Leadership Method That Transforms Technical Experts into Leaders Teams Actually Want to Work For":
https://fromcodetopeople.lemanskills.com/
✉︎ FOLLOW ME ON: ⤵︎
LinkedIn: @aleksandralemanska
TikTok: @aleksandra_lemanska
X: @lemanskills
Startup Community Poznan: @startup-community-poznan-scp
www.lemanskills.com
Join Leadership Pulse! https://lemanskills.com/pulse/