Let’s get this out of the way. I didn’t set out to be a manager.

I’m a builder. I like code, queries, pipelines, systems that either work or don’t and can be debugged accordingly. But somewhere along the journey at a previous employer, between helping new starters, cleaning up legacy workflows, and fixing things no one else would touch, I found myself being looked to for guidance. Not just technical direction, but people stuff.

At first, it was casual mentoring. Answering questions, offering advice, occasionally reviewing someone’s approach before it got out of hand. But then, for a few stretches of time, I was given formal responsibility for other engineers. Team members in different countries and time zones, with varied skill levels and priorities.

And I wasn’t great at it.

The Trouble With Time Zones

Managing across time zones sounds manageable until you actually try it. It wasn’t just the logistics, it was the lag in conversations. I’d wake up to a Teams backlog. They’d wake up to half-answered questions. We were always a day behind resolving anything complex. I found myself chasing tasks, context-switching more than coding, and struggling to feel like a present, reliable lead.

It wasn’t just difficult. It exposed something uncomfortable. I lacked the toolkit.

The Pivot: Self-Development

I’ve never been one to wait for formal training to appear. So I did what most engineers do when they hit something they don’t understand. I read a bunch of books.

Here’s what I worked through:

• 12 Rules for Life — for personal discipline and responsibility
• The Art of War — because apparently all is fair in leadership and legacy code
• The Righteous Mind — to better understand moral foundations and cross-cultural dynamics
• The 5 AM Club — for habit hacking (spoiler: I still don’t wake up at 5)
• The Making of a Manager — practical, specific, actually helpful
• How to Win Friends & Influence People — a classic for good reason
• Atomic Habits — because systems beat goals
• Supercommunicators — to learn how to talk less like a tech lead and more like a human being

Some of it was philosophical. Some of it was tactical. But what it gave me was a framework I could start applying deliberately, rather than improvising out of stress or urgency.

Trying Stuff

The biggest change I made was starting regular one to ones.

Not performance reviews. Not sprint updates. Just half an hour each week with each reportee, where they could bring whatever they wanted. Technical blockers. Interpersonal tensions. Career questions. Or nothing at all. Sometimes we just talked shop or swapped keyboard shortcuts.

These conversations became the most useful thirty minutes of my week. They helped me understand what motivated each team member, what frustrated them, and what I could actually do to help instead of assuming what they needed.

One engineer in particular stands out. He had been missing deadlines, and the rest of the team were starting to notice. At first, I thought it was a time management issue. But after a couple of honest chats, it turned out he was feeling overwhelmed and unsure of his place in the team. So we shifted to daily one to ones. Short, focused check-ins to help him build confidence and stay on track.

He did not suddenly turn everything around. Progress was slow, but it was there. He started taking more initiative. He asked better questions. He began to open up about what he wanted from his career. Eventually, he decided to leave and pursue a master’s degree. I wrote his recommendation letter.

That experience stuck with me. Not every story ends with a promotion or a neat resolution. Sometimes, the best thing you can do as a manager is support someone while they figure out what they really want. Even if it takes them somewhere else.

Was It Perfect?

Not even close.

I still missed things. Some weeks I cancelled one to ones because of conflicting priorities. A mistake I regret every time. I still prefer solving systems problems to people problems. But I learned that managing well is not about control. It is about creating space for others to do their best work.

Sometimes that means helping someone hit their stride. Sometimes it means helping them realise they want something completely different. In the end, the real measure of those conversations was not output or velocity. It was trust. And in a job where everything else can shift overnight, that is something I am glad I learned how to build.

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