97 Things Every Engineering Manager Should Know

Chapter 69. Prioritize Building Relationships with Your Peers

Rocio Delgado

When we become managers, we become responsible for the success of the team that we are leading. We immediately start building relationships with our direct reports, managing career development, removing blockers, providing context, helping set goals and resolving conflicts. We begin spending time in one-on-ones on a recurrent basis to get to know them, understand their drivers, and help them to grow and achieve their goals.

Although all of this is extremely important, it’s critical to build similar relationships with your peers across the organization. Neglecting to do so contributes to the creation of silos, poor decision making, and potentially an “us versus them mentality,” which causes collaboration problems between teams.

As managers, our peers are our team #1 and not our direct reports.

Team #1, as described by Patrick Lencioni, in his book Five Dysfunctions of a Team, refers to the team that is your priority. When a leader makes the team they’re directly managing the priority over everything else, it’s easy to forget that they are part of the larger organization and that they need alignment with peer teams to make sure they are working toward the proper set of goals.

To be part of a cohesive organization, everyone should pay attention to the collective set of goals and results above the individual ...