More than code: 4 pieces of leadership advice for engineers

Engineering executive Amy Bunszel relays leadership advice for engineers. Spoiler alert: Great leadership doesn't require managing people.

leadership advice puzzle pieces

Amy Bunszel

July 25, 2016

min read
leadership advice play

When I was in high school, I put my heart and soul into the theater program, where I was the stage manager for Annie Get Your Gun.

In that role, I supported and challenged the entire cast and crew to come together as a team in just a few short weeks. I didn’t act, build the sets, or control the lights. I was all about the logistics—making sure that, on opening night, everything was perfect so that everyone was able to bring their best to the audience.

That experience had a big impact on my approach to leadership. As a founder of Linius Technologies, I had to wear a lot of hats and shift my focus often to keep everything moving forward. But it wasn’t really until Autodesk acquired our startup in 2003 that I was able to parlay and scale my variety of experiences, from stage manager to hardware engineer, application engineer, and startup founder. The stakes are higher now, of course, as I’m responsible for both product strategy and development and am now overseeing a cross-functional team of 700 people around the globe. But the overarching goals of both roles were the same: making sure everyone is able to deliver their best.

Spanning from my high school theater experience to my transition from startup founder to corporate vice president, here are my four pieces of leadership advice for engineers.

1. Accept you’re not a master of all trades

leadership advice many hats

Unlike Annie Oakley in my high school’s musical, I learned early that when it comes to my team, “anything you can do, I can do better” is often not the case. Many people I oversee do work I can’t, with skills I don’t possess, and that is an uncomfortable transition for many new leaders. But in order to grow as a leader, you need to understand how to focus on the areas where you add unique value while bringing out the best in the other people on your team.

On my team, I make sure all individual contributors have a direct manager who can coach them within their specific domain. Those first-line managers are close to the action, with the ability to provide specific knowledge and training, as well as evaluate the expertise, training needs, results, and output of their team members.

But it’s not just about the hard skills. You also need to evaluate how people approach their work, and you can get a lot of good, tangible examples from your own observations and from 360-degree feedback. Between the two, you can correlate how that person fits into and helps advance the team—both the results they deliver as well as the approach they bring to the role, the team, and the company.

2. Become a leader, even if you’re not a manager

Computer scientist and entrepreneur Tim Howes—who grew his team at Loudcloud to 650 members in 18 months—shared some sound advice when he said, “Watch out for the temptation to take your top coders and make them managers.”

Many people believe that to advance or be seen as a leader, they need to manage people—and the more people the better. I disagree. It is totally possible and even expected to be a leader without being a manager. On my team, we have many people who coach other team members, set the technical direction, own key deliverables, and are accountable for group results. They just don’t manage people.

Managing people is really time-consuming and can get very messy at times. It has to be something that you truly want to do. You have to feel joy in getting things done through others, as you won’t be as hands-on anymore. Your own deliverables will be less tangible. If you are managing just for advancement, you may not enjoy your job or be able to help your people. Instead, consider embracing other leadership roles that do not include people management, or ask for a management test-drive when someone is on vacation or leave so you can see what it’s really all about.

3. Always clear the path for your employees

leadership advice clearing path

The biggest challenge as a leader is not being a roadblock. In fact, it is your job to clear the roadblocks. I am happiest when I am able to keep my team moving at its optimal pace—and that’s a large part of what I do every day. I buffer and protect people from stuff that they shouldn’t have to worry about because it could distract and hinder them.

A good day for me is ensuring the path is clear, and a bad day is when there’s some big ugly thing blocking all these good people from getting their work done, and I can’t do anything about it. Their time is the most precious thing we have, and I don’t want to see it wasted.

At this point, I’m not really a practicing engineer anymore. I’m a leader and a manager of senior managers, and I’m at my best when I am enabling others to do their best work.

4. Step back and observe the whole scene

leadership advice bull's-eye

Sometimes you may have a high-powered engineering team that is constantly delivering. But if you were only judging them based on their impressive execution—hitting deadlines and creating deliverables—you might miss out on unhealthy and unsustainable dynamics within the team.

Especially on engineering teams, when there’s a plan, engineers want to stick to it. But sometimes the plan needs to change based on new information you learn along the way. Perhaps a competitor has entered your market, or you have gotten some early user feedback that indicates you might be missing the mark. There’s no benefit to flawlessly executing on the plan if it won’t meet your goals. You need to foster an environment where everyone feels comfortable coming forward and saying, “I have questions about this approach. I think we should reevaluate.” That’s not saying, “We can’t do this.” It’s asking, “Should we still do this based on new information?”

Transitioning from a startup into a leadership role at a large organization is challenging, frightening, daunting, and everything else. But it has also helped me discover how much I enjoy managing people. I saw that I was more fulfilled helping large numbers of people be effective and productive than I was in doing the engineering or creating the inventions myself. Using my position to focus on what I do best—so other people can do their best—is so satisfying.

In the words of Annie Oakley: “Aim at a high mark, and you will hit it. No, not the first time, not the second time, and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming, and keep on shooting, for only practice will make you perfect. Finally, you’ll hit the bull’s-eye of success.”

Amy Bunszel

About Amy Bunszel

As executive vice president, Architecture, Engineering and Construction Design Solutions, Amy Bunszel manages product strategy and execution for Autodesk’s 3D design portfolio including the Autodesk Architecture, Engineering and Construction Collection, AutoCAD family, Autodesk Revit, and more.With more than 20 years of experience innovating software products across the architecture, engineering, and construction, manufacturing, and media and entertainment industries, Bunszel inspires innovative strategy while driving large-scale agile software development around the globe. She combines her roots as a start-up co-founder with deep product management knowledge and large-scale product execution expertise to build high-performing teams focused on delivering value to their customers.Bunszel transformed the company’s best-selling AutoCAD product to a modern multi-platform offering that serves as the backbone of the company’s subscription business and led a global team in developing and delivering desktop, web and mobile apps that have been adopted by millions of design and engineering professionals worldwide. In her present role, she is building on her track record of modernizing beloved software across Autodesk’s broad design and creation product portfolio.Before joining Autodesk, Bunszel co-founded Linius Technologies in 1996. The company delivered wire harness design software to the manufacturing industry. Its technology was integrated with Autodesk’s Inventor 3D mechanical design software when Autodesk acquired the company in 2003. Bunszel holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University and an M.S. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. She is a member of the President’s Council for Cornell Women, the Entrepreneurship Program at Cornell, and The Athena Alliance.

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