#status/processed ![Cover Image|300](https://www.oreilly.com/content/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2020/01/business-keep-out-sign-crop-725d95880e5d12177c6edc1e9de8e7be.jpg) # Metadata Author:: [[Camille Fournier]] Title:: Ask the CTO: A Peer Manager Is Trying to Take My Engineers Full Title:: Ask the CTO: A Peer Manager Is Trying to Take My Engineers Import Date:: 2023-06-08 Source:: #source/readwise/reader Source URL:: [Source URL](https://www.oreilly.com/content/ask-the-cto-a-peer-manager-is-trying-to-take-my-engineers/) Review URL:: [Review URL](https://readwise.io/bookreview/28743749) # Document Tags:: [[Engineering Management]] [[Leadership]] [[People Management]] # Highlights - There is something called the **==“first team” concept==**. I’ve seen it expressed in a few different ways, but the idea is that ==when you are a manager of people, your first team is not actually the people who report to you, but your peers across the organization.== - Date:: [[2023-06-08]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2cjmgs7wsdhg13x7cf57vnk) - You keep your closest confidences not with people who report to you but with the other leaders in your area. - Date:: [[2023-06-08]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2cjn2hedxqywtnt58acqp0w) - He might be playing politics, but it seems likely to me that he is pushing for some of your headcount because you have turned into a bottleneck for the overall organization. - Date:: [[2023-06-08]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2cjpbe54yc7ehd4emzjqmqj) - Twenty direct reports is too many for anyone to manage well, especially if they have other responsibilities beyond people management. You have to get some level of structure within your organization to take off some of the management load from your shoulders. - Date:: [[2023-06-08]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2cjpwnreprj0p1qj6s26rgm) - ==As a leader, our success depends not just on the outcomes of our team, but the outcomes of our overall organization.== Getting out of the engineering-first mindset and into a mindset where our peer group has expanded to include other departments is important to give us perspective on the organization and to help see problems with our team in the wider context of the overall company. - Date:: [[2023-06-08]] - Find: [View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01h2cjqw5j1sea21haypng90xz)