Too many managers treat self-care like an afterthought — until burnout forces them to stop. I’ve been there (still am sometimes). Our mental state is always reflected back to us, and not just at work. We must take responsibility for it. No one needs a burned-out you.

So every once in a while, I revisit these principles before exhaustion really sets in — I hope they help you too:

1. Protect my calendar

I block time for deep work, breaks, and personal priorities. If I don’t, someone else will. If I have important tasks, I schedule them.

2. Set a hard stop time

I decide when my workday ends and I stick to it. Blurred work-life boundaries are the fastest path to burnout. In my team’s Slack channel, I set a daily reminder to write down “Wind-down notes” as a ritual to close the day and leave work at work.

3. Say no more often

Not every meeting, project, or email needs my attention. It’s hard when we love to help. Starting with “no” unless convinced otherwise protects my energy.

4. Prioritize recovery like a deadline

Sleep, exercise, and hobbies aren’t optional. They are the fuel that keeps me effective as a leader and fully present with my wife and sons. Remember that endorphin rush after a good game of squash?

5. Automate and delegate aggressively

If a task is repetitive, I should automate it. If someone else can do it 80% as well as I would, I must delegate it. My time is too valuable for low-leverage work — and by preventing others from learning, I just create more work for myself.

6. Measure energy, not just output

If I feel constantly drained, my workload is unsustainable. I must track how I feel at the end of each week and adjust accordingly. I cannot do my best work nor be my best self by running on an empty tank.

Self-care isn’t selfish

It’s how I can stay sharp, lead effectively, create a good atmosphere, and avoid becoming another burned-out manager who regrets not starting sooner.

Life’s too short to grind through chronic burnout.

You welcome people in, guide the flow, and make sure no one’s stuck in a corner awkwardly sipping their drink. When the energy dips, you bring it back up. When things get chaotic, you steer it back on track.

Engagement isn’t automatic, it’s created.

Team leaders must energize meetings to boost engagement, and here are 5 deceptively simple tactics that have helped me countless times:

1. Have An Agenda

A meeting without a plan is a waste of time.

Explain the goal at the start. Outline key topics, share them in advance, and stick to them. But keep the agenda open: anyone can add a topic — ensure they are prefixed with people’s names to quickly get the right person to speak when the time comes.

This keeps discussions focused and sets expectations from the get-go.

2. Share Your Screen While Note-Taking

Seeing key points in real time keeps people engaged.

It also ensures alignment — everyone follows the same discussion flow, reducing misunderstandings and side conversations. If they somehow lose track, they can easily catch up. Pro tip: create a new browser window for that meeting — no one needs to see your million tabs!

And after the meeting, you can share the notes.

3. Call Out People By Name For Their Input

If you ask, “Any thoughts?” you’ll get silence.

Instead, direct questions to individuals: “Alex, what’s your take on this?” It encourages participation, keeps people’s attention (“what if I’m being called to speak next?!”) and prevents dominant voices from taking over. This is deceptively simple and yet so efficient!

Just ensure it’s an invitation, not an obligation.

4. Gently Keep Things on Topic

Meetings derail when tangents take over.

If despite the note-taking and the agenda the conversation drifts, step in: “That’s a great point — let’s note it for later. Right now, we need to decide on X.” This keeps momentum without shutting people down.

When discussing next steps at the end of the meeting, go back to these points and find some related actionable items.

5. Use Silence Strategically

People need time to think.

After asking a question, wait at least five seconds. If people lose focus, break your rhythm with silence. People snap back to attention when the rhythm shifts.

The discomfort forces engagement — someone will inevitably break the silence.

Keep people on the edge of their seats

Once people are used to these tactics, they’ll pay more attention and participate more. And as any good party host, we cannot let meetings be “just about us”. We must let other participants take ownership of the goals and see where they run with them.

My experience until that point was:

• We’d open with some small talk
• I could then share whatever bothered me
• They’d tell me they’d pass on the feedback
• We’d close with discussions about operational things

If I needed a venting session, these sessions helped. But that was about it. It wasn’t much of a discussion.

I’ll always remember my first 1:1 as a manager: my colleague thought we were done after 5 minutes. And then I asked about how they saw their career. We ended 30 minutes over time and they seemed fired up — I was onto something.

That’s when I realised something: 1:1s aren’t just a checkbox — they’re essential.

Here are 3 must-have conversations every people manager should have regularly to turn 1:1s into a powerful leadership tool and build thriving teams:

1. Feedback session (looking back)

It’s hard to grow or meet expectations without feedback.

In my experience, people want to know how they are doing but managers often fail to provide feedback, either because they forgot or because it was going to be uncomfortable. A focused feedback session is a great way to acknowledge recent successes and reflect on things that did not go as well. If we want our colleagues to grow as fast as they can, we can’t afford to wait for annual performance reviews.

It’s our duty to help them focus on the right priorities.

2. Career Planning (looking ahead)

“I would like to talk about your career ambitions and see how we can work together to get there.”

People love to talk about themselves and their ambitions, as long as it doesn’t feel forced. Understanding their aspirations helps you spot opportunities within the company to build their track record. You can also suggest skills they should practice and improve before they would be considered for a promotion.

And maybe they’re just happy where they are — not everyone wants to climb the career ladder, and that’s totally fine.

3. How Can I Better Support You? (present)

We all need a shoulder to cry on sometimes.

This question creates a safe space: it shows you’re invested in their success and want to support them as best as you can. Folks might share personal struggles, workplace frustrations — or even just ask for a raise.

Whatever it may be, resist the urge to jump in with solutions — sometimes, people just need to be heard.

We Must Care

We must care for our colleagues — by paying attention and looking out for them. When people feel supported, they take bigger risks, build new skills, and push the team forward.

And when teams thrive, so does the company.

Mike Tyson doesn’t work as a manager in a tech company, but he knows how easily we can forget our principles or “deeply held” values when adversity punches us in the face. There just needs to be enough pressure for this to happen. We get overwhelmed with all the problems we need to solve and we become reactive.

Principles are a life-vest when all else seems uncertain — trust me, I really understood “Don’t shoot the messenger” earlier this month.

When losing control, managers could make good use of 15 minutes of their day to read and ponder on the following 3 Stoic quotes — to regain perspective and agency.

1. “Waste no more time arguing what a good person should be. Be one.” — Marcus Aurelius

Managers lead by example through inspiring others.

Being respectful. Showing courage and humility. Acknowledging when we were wrong. Taking one for the team. Considering the bigger picture.

When we just seek faults in others, we ignore our own responsibility.

2. “The willing are led by fate, the reluctant dragged.” — Seneca

My first boss told me the battle is lost if you need to motivate people — or that beatings will continue until morale improves!

As managers, our success is tied to our team’s success. And it’s really hard to rebuild momentum if the mood is low — after two reorgs, I would know… Somehow, we need to keep going and delivering.

And it’s just so much more pleasant for everyone when “the stars align” — supporting the team should always be our #1 priority.

3. “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.” — Seneca

Always be biased towards taking action.

Even when things aren’t so certain, there’s always something in our power to better prepare for eventualities. There might be untapped opportunities — we just need to keep an open-mind to be able to see them. Luck does not just happen, we should actively seek it.

Make new connections, join new conversations, offer your help.

Managers are the original influencers

The most powerful tools to steer our teams through both calm and turbulent times: our mindset and emotional resilience.

Embrace the wisdom of the Stoics as your mentors — let their timeless guidance help you inspire, lead, and magnify your impact every day.

As a new manager, I made the mistake of putting one meeting after the next. I thought this would help me create focus time blocks at other times in the week — I still wanted my coding time. Just imagine the quality of my one-on-one’s after the fourth or fifth meeting in the last 3 hours.

I simply couldn’t sustain my energy levels and emotional availability.

But it doesn’t have to be this way. Just like in web design, we need proper spacing to let things breathe. Your brain needs white space too.

And it can be as simple as leaving a 15-minute gap between each meeting.

That’s it.

It doesn’t mean you will suddenly get free hours to meditate every day — though some breathing exercise can still be a good idea.

You might need to get some water, have a toilet break or just open the window to let in some fresh air.

Or your Slack is on fire and you need to check.

At the very least, you now have some time to jot down those action items you promised.

Or you might just do nothing. That works too.

These gaps are never a waste of time. They are the difference between complete exhaustion at the end of the day or still having some energy left in the tank to enjoy life after work. When it spans multiple days, draining weeks spill over weekends for recovery.

Nowhere in your contract does it say you have to burn yourself out (or maybe it’s time to switch jobs!)

That trick won’t always be available when others take control of your calendar. But you’re a manager now — use that power to protect your time. Start with 15-minute gaps.

We all know that context-switching is bad. Yet somehow, as managers we must learn to switch hats faster if we wish to lead effectively. It takes work to get better at all these different roles — after 2 years as a manager, I’m still learning every day.

I hope that acknowledging all these different roles we play as managers can help you reflect on your journey and be more intentional about which area you want to improve.

The Coach

Micromanaging is THE best way to achieve results, said no one ever.

For the team to realise its potential, we need to guide from a higher level. Our job isn’t to do the work — it’s to create the conditions for others to grow and succeed. We can coach effectively by:

• asking thoughtful questions: “what options did you consider?”, “can you explain the trade-offs?”, “what would you do differently in that other context?”
• offering clear feedback: “your PR review was very detailed and caught some unexpected bug, good job!” or “your question was buried in the middle of your message, next time make it obvious to get faster help.”

It’s never a one-off — one-on-one’s and team meetings are always great opportunities to wear that hat.

The Problem-Solver

When is the last time you had a day without surprises?

Whatever it may be, it’s never a question of *if* there will be a problem to solve, but rather *when* — this has been a critical adjustment to my expectations. I found it much easier afterward to jump in at a moment’s notice. We assess the context, we make decisions, and we unblock the team.

Some conflict arises — get people to talk it through and moderate the discussion.

The team is suddenly unsure which way to go — choose the most appropriate path forward.

The Visionary

When our teams are in the thick of it, they lose touch of the bigger picture.

in the middle of a long, painful migration, the work can feel endless. That’s when we reconnect it to the business impact: “This migration will unlock greater performance, which will improve the conversion rate by X% for every 100 ms we save!” This gives their tasks renewed meaning.

When the team lacks motivation, it’s usually because they forgot why their work matters.

The Cheerleader

If we’re not going to notice our team’s achievements, who will?

Every small win is worth celebrating. Give credit to everyone involved. Push team members to share their successes — drafting that Slack announcement will help them gain recognition.

The Spokesperson

We speak on behalf of the team.

When people reach out, they see us as the team personified. Our words must reflect the team’s identity. We must be transparent and ensure discussions don’t get stuck in private messages.

We build bridges by offering help and protect the team’s scope by establishing clear expectations.

The Organizer

Managing is also about handling the meta work to support the team.

Sick days and time off requests.

Performance reviews and promotions.

Candidate interviews and onboarding.

Team meetings and processes.

The Enforcer

Well-functioning teams need standards.

We hold ourselves and the team accountable. When performance slips, we course-correct:

• Clarify expectations with a team-wide message,
• Organise retros to reflect and improve,
• Propose process updates to serve the team better.

This isn’t about blame — it’s about maintaining the team’s identity and shared goals.

As staff engineers go through the transition to manager, they need to realize they’ve accepted a new job.

What worked as a staff will not necessarily work as a manager. Dealing with legacy systems can be messy, but working with people is always a delicate dance. You need to develop a new set of skills.

In the two years that I’ve been a manager, these 3 challenges have shaped me and forced me to adapt to that new reality. I hope they can reframe some of your experiences and help you navigate this transition better.

Learning to delegate tasks

It is such a silly thing, but when people asked me something in a private Slack message, I assumed they wanted me to solve it, personally.

In reality, they were asking my team to do something about their problem. I usually didn’t want to bother my team members, to protect their focus time. And so I little by little took on more than I could manage.

No one seemed to appreciate the sacrifice as it was mostly invisible. When my team members would not stay focused and pursue side quests instead, I would become very frustrated. But that was on me.

I had a team and it was my job to drive it to get the results the organization expected — I had to delegate clearly and follow up. Give ownership, not instructions.

Managing former peers

If you stay within the same team (which seems to be quite a common situation from anecdotal experience), it can be difficult to exert authority when you all used to be peers or still consider yourselves as peers.

Everything becomes a negotiation of sorts. You need to prove the value you bring to the team as a manager so that they may start considering giving in on some things. Even if you have the last word institutionally, that’s not how you can inspire your team to do better.

What I found to work great in my case was putting extra attention on 1:1s. It’s often something managers struggle with, and so any value you can provide there is unexpected and pays off disproportionately to the effort. Example topics of discussion:

• career goals and aspirations
• good feedback on something they’ve done well
• exploration of areas where they could improve

You show you care and want them to grow.

Balancing personal work and team management

As a staff engineer, I had (and still have) a lot of context about our systems.

It’s always very tempting to be hands-on when I see a problem that I know how to solve. It’s familiar, a reminder of what I used to do every day. A nice distraction from my current duties.

But it’s almost always a terrible idea.

The corresponding Jira ticket ends up stuck, because I’m quickly reminded I should be:

• removing blockers,
• making sure the team is working on what matters,
• and sharing my knowledge to grow and empower team members,

and not:

• make a bottleneck of myself,
• increase my workload unnecessarily,
• appear distracted (while wanting the team to focus).

The more requests we solved, the more requests we got. It somehow never seemed to end. We could never focus on solving problems proactively.

And then my manager said to me: “You know, the more things you touch, the more you destabilize the system, and the more you create work for yourself.”

Yes, that request came as a result of us fixing that other thing, without fully understanding the context. Yes, that other request forced team A to adopt a breaking change, but they need to adopt this other urgent fix because production is broken. Yes, that outage somehow happened because of unforeseen interactions between legacy systems and the fix we deployed.

The Efficiency Paradox

The more efficient we make something, the more we use it.

When the goal becomes to solve as many requests and as quickly as possible — –and you are successful at that, you build a reputation of efficient problem-solvers. People will naturally think of you when they face their next problem. It’s not a terrible thing in itself — unless the team is already overwhelmed.

What’s more, you might introduce lots of quick fixes instead of solving problems more thoroughly and sustainably. The tech debt increases. The situation worsens.

Platform teams must take another, less reactive approach to provide better support.

Not All Requests Are Created Equal

Fire-fighting often stems from a lack of clear priorities.

When you’re overwhelmed, stressed out and in a reactive mindset, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. And so you just tackle the next problem hoping the game of whack-a-mole will end. To break the cycle, define what exactly the team should focus on at the moment.

Establishing that priority helps to focus the assessment of requests through qualifying questions:

1. Nice-to-have or blocker: How urgent is the request?

2. Alignment: How on-topic is the request with respect to what the team/company decided was a priority?

3. Opportunity cost: How does the value of solving that request compare to what you’re currently doing?

Make it okay to defer solving these issues at a later date: “Thanks for the report, we converted it to a Jira ticket and we will prioritize it next sprint.” That means one person on the team can triage requests and the rest can focus on more impactful projects.

We still get weeks that are more intense than others, of course. And some people like the thrill of being everywhere at once. But understanding that paradox and necessity to have one guiding priority really helps to regain control when it slips away momentarily.

It’s easy to get caught up in analysis-paralysis: you know your decisions matter, so you need to choose wisely. You don’t want your team to suffer because of you, especially if you went too fast. The truth is, we all make mistakes and no one works in a perfect environment.

Great decisions come down to understanding context and managing trade-offs.

Context Is Everything

Decisions that work in one situation can fail in another.

For example, being scrappy like a startup won’t transfer well to a more mature company that must adhere to standards. Failing to account for timing, resources, or stakeholder needs only leads to poor outcomes. Understanding the context brings the necessary nuance to put best practices in perspective.

Perhaps better practices is more accurate — the context decides whether to put them to good use or not.

Every Decision Has Trade-Offs

When you say yes, you say no.

Choosing one path means giving up another. The mistake is ignoring what you’re sacrificing. It’s a lot better to choose the problem you would rather deal with than to leave it up to chance.

Making great decisions is about finding the best compromise.

Adaptability Beats Certainty

Overcommitting to a rigid plan ignores how quickly contexts can shift.

Market conditions change, new disruptive tech emerges, people come and go. We can’t predict the future and always operate with incomplete information, and so it is futile to treat any decision as final. It’s always a good idea to be receptive to feedback and adapt your course midway — you might just hit a wall instead.

Successful companies know they must pivot to survive.

Great leadership isn’t about always being right.

It’s about making the best choice in the moment and being willing to course-correct when presented with new information.

Document Your Wins

Keep a running list of accomplishments.

I call it a Brag Document. Focus on measurable outcomes like improving efficiency by 20% or launching a feature that drove a 15% increase in user engagement. But make sure your work contributed significantly to those, or there will be pushback.

Managers need concrete examples to back you up: for performance reviews, for promotion committees, to negotiate salary raises on your behalf.

Align Your Work with Team Goals

Make sure your contributions directly support your team or company’s objectives.

And not in some distant interpretation of what that means. There’s nothing worse for a manager to have to explain why you’ve been seemingly going off course for the last quarter despite their attempts to keep you focused on the mission.

Tie your impact to big-picture goals like meeting KPIs or supporting strategic initiatives.

Communicate Proactively

Don’t assume your work speaks for itself.

Share updates during team meetings or in one-on-ones. Highlight challenges you’ve overcome, solutions you’ve implemented, and results you’ve delivered. Your manager is not omniscient.

It’s ultimately your responsibility to market for yourself — don’t leave your career progression solely up to your manager du jour.

Be Clear About Your Aspirations

Your manager isn’t a mind reader — certainly I’m not!

If you’re aiming for a promotion, say so. On the next one-on-one, you could then discuss what’s required to get there and request regular feedback on how you’re progressing. It gives you a common objective to pursue.

Your manager might then just give you more opportunities to build that track record.

Build Relationships Across Teams

When others recognize your contributions, it strengthens your manager’s case.

Collaborate effectively with colleagues and build a reputation as someone who adds value beyond your immediate role. Mentor others. Build bridges.

This compounds over time — people on the promo committee might already look favourably at your case as a result.

Support Your Manager’s Goals

Your manager’s performance is tied to their team’s performance.

It’s simple really: why would they go the extra mile to be your advocate if you’ve not been particularly helpful? Ask how you can contribute to their priorities. A manager who feels supported is more likely to champion your growth.

You might just make their days a bit brighter too, and people remember how you made them feel.

Advocacy doesn’t happen by accident — it’s a result of intentional effort and partnership. Help your manager help you. Make it easy for them to speak of your achievements and you might land that promotion faster than you would have thought otherwise.

It’s certainly worked for me.