# management-skills

Published articles for management-skills.

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## Taking Ownership and Handling Difficult Responsibilities as an Engineering Manager

DevFeed: [Taking Ownership and Handling Difficult Responsibilities as an Engineering Manager](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/it-s-time-to-be-the-bad-guy-26535.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://annajmcdougall.medium.com/its-time-to-be-the-bad-guy-76d14e8f64db?source=rss-51f15275ef3a------2>)

Author: Anna J McDougall

Published: 2025-06-25T12:20:24Z

Content type: opinion

Language: en

Sources: [Anna J McDougall](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/anna-j-mcdougall.md>)

Topics: [engineering-leadership](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/engineering-leadership.md>), [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>)

Tags: [engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering.md>), [engineering-leadership](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering-leadership.md>), [engineering-management](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering-management.md>), [engineering-manager](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/engineering-manager.md>), [leadership](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/leadership.md>), [leadership-team](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/leadership-team.md>), [management](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/management.md>), [management-skills](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/management-skills.md>), [software-engineering](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/software-engineering.md>), [teams](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/teams.md>)

### AI overview

This commentary argues that engineering managers must sometimes accept conflict and deliver difficult feedback instead of trying to remain peers with their teams. As leaders move away from hands-on development, they must balance engineers' needs with stakeholders, product, and business expectations.

### Source excerpt

An Engineering Manager's Guide to Taking Ownership by Taking Heat Title Image: a vibrant yellow background with a picture of Anna smiling, with two red devil-horns superimposed on top. Title text reads: "It's time to be the BAD GUY. An Engineering Manager's Guide to Taking Ownership by Taking Heat"Introduction At my first project management job, I was given the nickname "Mad Dog".* Any time new sales reps would join the company, the existing reps would try to scare them by telling them "Oh shit, you're on Mad Dog's project". The joke, of course, is that I'm a big ol' ray of sunshine: After a few days of being scared to encounter Mad Dog, those reps would meet me and realise they weren't going to have a problem with some hard-ass micromanager. The same is still true today, but I've also come to realise that there are some benefits to being Mad Dog. Sometimes, the best way to help your team is to lean into being the bad guy. In this post, I'll cover some situations where it's good to be bad, and why being the bad guy is a core management skill. * The nickname came about due to my name's similarity to a famous football player (Adam "Mad Dog" MacDougall). Say "Anna McDougall" and "Adam MacDougall" ten times and you'll hear it. Leadership means stepping out of the team As you move up the engineering leadership chain, from EM to Director to VP to CTO, you become less and less a part of the development teams. This sense of social isolation often drives leaders to try their best to be buddy-buddy with developers, to attempt to completely eradicate any sense of hierarchy, and to improve psychological safety. In general, this is a great idea. As a leader, you do need people to know that you're just human. You should have people trust you with their real thoughts. You must enable a culture where failure and feedback are freely given and learned from. But... You are also the one who has to take the heat from above, and sometimes you have to be the bad guy to the team when it come