#17 | Sunday reads for EMs
My favourite reads of the week to make your Sunday a little more inspiring.
👋 Hey, it’s Stephane. This is a new series in which every Sunday I share with you my favourite reads of the week. To accelerate your growth see: 50 Notion Templates | The EM’s Field Guide | CodeCrafters | Get Hired as an EM | 1:1 Coaching
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How to develop High Agency
tl;dr: High agency is the trait that separates people who find solutions from those who find excuses it’s being “relentlessly resourceful” instead of “hapless”. Companies now explicitly screen for this in hiring because one high-agency person who takes 5% of your management time beats ten who each need 10%.
Reverse impostor syndrome
tl;dr: Most people who think they have impostor syndrome actually have the opposite problem: they’re legitimately good at their work, but the external signals don’t reflect it because so few people see the hard problems they solve daily. The fix isn’t building confidence (you already have it), it’s learning to position yourself strategically by talking about your work differently, sharing learnings outside your team, and systematically updating how others perceive you.
The beauty of constraints
tl;dr: Constraints are one of the most powerful tools for making teams deliver more with less, but most leaders see them as problems to avoid rather than deliberately apply. Don’t accept the iron triangle (scope/resources/time) as trade-offs you manage, treat them as a toolkit of constraints you actively impose to force innovation. Musk’s 5-step algorithm religiously:
question every requirement (especially from smart people)
delete steps until you’re forced to add them back
only then optimize what remains
accelerate learning cycles
automate last
“Frugality drives innovation”. Putting yourself in a tight box makes you invent your way out.
How can I influence others without manipulating them?
tl;dr: Most of us have one default persuasion style (logic, conviction, negotiation, inspiration, or relationship-building) and we mistake others’ different styles for resistance when they’re just standing at a different door.
2025 DORA Report: State of AI-Assisted Software Development
tl;dr: AI amplifies what’s already there - strong teams get better, struggling teams expose their dysfunction faster. Seven team archetypes are suggested here to give leaders a diagnostic framework for understanding why their metrics look the way they do, not just what the numbers are. Useful if you’re trying to figure out where to invest to actually move the needle on AI effectiveness.
Most popular from last Sunday
Useful engineering management artifacts
What did you read recently that you would like to share?