From my perspective, building accountability in a team starts with understanding control.
The real leverage of an engineering manager is not tighter control, but well-designed guardrails.
Control often shows up as:
- frequent check-ins
- approval gates for small decisions
- defining implementation details
- monitoring activity instead of outcomes
Guardrails, on the other hand, look like:
- clear goals and success criteria
- explicit constraints around time, scope, and quality
- shared standards and principles
- predictable review and feedback loops
How This Works in Practice
Before work starts, make the why explicit.
Then align on:
- priorities
- non-negotiables
- acceptable trade-offs
Use metrics and checkpoints as signals, not enforcement mechanisms.
Step in only when guardrails are crossed — not before.
Takeaway
An effective EM does not control execution.
They design guardrails that allow teams to move fast, safely, and independently.
Guardrails require trust and patience, but they scale far better than control.
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