We know that the majority of work as an engineering leader is in writing rather than coding. Yet we hardly talk about whether our words are worth reading.
With writing on the internet, there’s a natural feedback loop: if your article is low quality, you’ll struggle to get readership and engagement, and you’ll self-correct for the next article to increase those metrics. Inside a workplace and at increasing levels of seniority, that feedback loop disappears. Your colleagues and direct reports are obligated to read your emails, so it becomes easy to mistake their readership as a sign of a good job.