This is Johanna Rothman’s June 2026 Pragmatic Manager Newsletter. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this newsletter.
Most of us have worked with managers who guided our careers. But managers aren't the only ones who can support other people's growth. Sometimes, technical leaders who are not “people managers” can have just as much impact on our careers.
This is the story of two technical leaders who decided to support other people's growth to achieve better outcomes for the product and the people.
Listen in On a Technical Leadership Conversation
Rita, a senior architect, sat down for her weekly lunch with her long-time friend and colleague, Marcia, a program manager. The two of them met when they started at the company the same week. Now, fifteen years later, they had chosen different career paths.
Rita was happy because she was still very technical. Her technical work revolved around product-focused experiments and socializing her reasoning about architectural decisions.
While Marcia understood the technology, her program management work focused on recognizing and clearing problems and impediments.
Over their sandwiches and chips, Marcia started the conversation. “I feel as if I'm paddling as fast as I can, just to stay in place. While I could keep doing this all by myself, I want to train some more junior project managers to recognize the systemic problems and start solving those problems without me. Are you seeing anything like that?”
Rita nodded as she finished chewing. “You bet. The biggest problem I have is this: the more junior architects are too quick to take the first solution they see. They don't seem to know about the Rule of Three or the idea of holding two opposing perspectives in mind.”
Marcia said, “I see the same. Why aren't they getting training from their managers?”
Rita snorted. “Even if the managers know how to solve these problems, they don't have the bandwidth to do so. I think everyone's working alone, all the time, not collaborating with anyone. That means the managers don't even see the problems, never mind solve them.”
Marcia nodded. “Okay. Let's you and I make a plan and see if we can't offer some support to make everyone better. And we can always offer what we do to our managers.”
Ask for Permission to Offer Help or Support for Other People's Growth
Not everyone wants to change. So Rita and Marcia each identified six people. They then asked those six people if they wanted to spend an hour a week learning how to see the system better.
Rita said she would offer insights into an evolutionary system of architecture and design, applied to product strategy and product leadership. She would focus on creating multiple options and choosing when to experiment and when to decide.
Marcia offered options in learning to see systemic problems in both individual projects and across project boundaries. Then, once people recognized the problems, to collaborate with others to solve them.
While both Rita and Marcia offered systems thinking approaches, they applied those ideas differently.
All the people wanted to learn, so Rita and Marcia proceeded.
Clarify What People Will Learn & Practice
When managers focus on one individual's career growth, that person can learn quickly and practice as the issues arise. In contrast, cohort-based learning tends to ask each person to apply what the cohort learns to their specific role. While Rita and Marcia offered the cohorts practice in the various systems thinking tools, such as Force Field Analysis, Connection Circles, and Causal Loop Diagrams, each person applied that knowledge to their specific interests.
When Rita discussed Force Field Analysis, she helped her cohort see how people all over the organization felt about the code and any architectural changes she and her cohort wanted to consider. They could discuss and address the various forces for and against.
When Marcia discussed Connection Circles, she focused on who made decisions and when, based on the current culture. She helped her cohort understand which data each manager might need to make better and faster decisions. And, how that data might affect that manager's perspective on culture.
As a result, the cohorts learned from each other as they addressed systemic problems. Cohort-based learning is an example of flow efficiency thinking applied to workgroups, not teams.
As the people in the cohorts learned, both Rita and Marcia started delegating some of their decision-making to them. Not only did Rita and Marcia gain a little breathing room, but the cohorts also delivered even better results than Rita or Marcia had anticipated.
Results of Other People's Growth
Rita and Marcia did not have “support other people's growth” as part of their job descriptions. But when they did, they exhibited even more technical leadership. The entire organization got incrementally more effective.
While Rita's and Marcia's managers recognized their work and gave them credit, not all the managers were that happy. Some of those managers said, “I don't know how to reward people if they help others. I only know how to reward individual work.”
Rewards are a different problem. If I can figure out how to write a reasonably short newsletter about that, I will. Otherwise, it will be a series on my blog.
Read More…
This newsletter touches on ideas in these books:
- All three of the Modern Management Made Easy books
- Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization
- Successful Independent Consulting: Relationships That Focus on Mutual Benefit. (Technical leaders sometimes look like consultants.)
This is a part of the intermittent series of leadership tips.
Announcements
I am happy to report that Effective Public Speaking: How to Use Content Marketing With Stories to Show Your Value is available on my store in ebook and audio. (The audio will only be available on my store.) I have also distributed the ebook and print books to all the usual stores.
Links of Interest
New to the newsletter? See previous issues. (I post these newsletters to my YouTube Channel a few days after I send them.) Here's the link to this video.
Here are other links you might find useful:
- Managing Product Development Blog. (Yes, I offer an RSS feed so you can read everything in a newsreader.) I'm in the middle of a series about how to tell if AI is helping or hurting your product development.
- Create an Adaptable Life Blog to see the weekly question of the week.
- My Books. You can also buy my self-published ebooks and audiobooks on my store.
- Johanna’s Fiction
- Tip Jar. (My newsletters will remain free. And I do want to offer you an option for you to show how much you value my work.)
Johanna
© 2026 Johanna Rothman
Pragmatic Manager: Vol 23, #6. ISSN: 2164-1196