Elevate Your Perspective: Strategic Thinking for Senior Engineers
In ancient battles, generals would often stand on the highest hill to get a clear view of the entire battlefield. This wide perspective allowed them to make strategic decisions based on the big picture, rather than getting caught up in the details of each individual fight.
Similarly, in today’s professional world, if you’re aiming for a promotion or a leadership role, you need to look beyond just your team and projects. It’s important to understand how your work fits into the larger goals of the organization.
Engineers often struggle with this shift. They may be excellent at what they do but can find it difficult to broaden their focus and show leadership across the organization.
At a certain point, doing your job well isn’t enough. You need to expand your thinking. Start by taking on responsibilities beyond your current role. For example, tackle unresolved issues, or take the initiative to implement performance or security tests that others may have missed.
This can be intimidating because it takes you from being an expert in one area to being a beginner in another. However, as the concept of a “beginner’s mind” teaches us, being open to learning new things and leaving your ego at the door is essential for growth. Are you ready to embrace that mindset?
Here are some practical tips to get you started:
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Read Widely: Don’t limit yourself to books and content only in your field. Broaden your perspective by reading about various topics—whether it’s business, social sciences, security, programming, or even leadership from a historical lens. If you only consume content from your specific area, you risk narrowing your worldview.
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Avoid Tactical Hell: Constantly putting out fires and reacting to immediate issues without a strategic plan can burn you out. If you find yourself stuck in this cycle, take a step back. Do you feel like others are leading your life? Sometimes it helps to take a break, do something different, like a sport or hobby, to clear your mind.
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Seek Strategic Heaven: Look for areas within your influence where you can make an impact. If tackling a massive project, like stabilizing a huge test suite, seems overwhelming redefine the problem. Perhaps whe whole test suite should be dumped in favour of lower level tests? Are you willing to stop Sisyphus work?
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Challenge Yourself Beyond Your Comfort Zone: You don’t need to become an expert in every field, but try doing something that pushes your thinking. This is especially relevant for those in specialized roles like testing or DevOps who are looking to take on more responsibility. If you went back to your old role, would you approach it the same way?
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Understand the Business: Do you really know how your company makes money? What projects are vital to the company’s success? Figure out if those projects need more formal testing strategies, or if some areas have less customer impact and can be handled more flexibly.
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Delegate: Free yourself from the day-to-day execution. If you’re caught up in routine tasks, you won’t have the time or energy to think strategically or plan for the future.
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Broaden Your View: Don’t just surround yourself with people who think like you. Seek out diverse opinions, bring in people with different perspectives, and invite them into discussions. Challenging your assumptions will expand your understanding.
Book recommendations: