Quiz: What is your Engineering Manager Archetype ?

Find out to become aware of your own strengths and blind spots

Photo by salvatore ventura on Unsplash

After I published the article The Five Types of Engineering Managers You’ll Meet in Your Career for senior tech leaders, a few front-line engineering managers reached out to me and asked if I could help them with identifying their type.

Without any further ado, here is a quiz to help you find out your engineering manager archetype. Knowing your own type will help you become aware of your own strengths and blind spots.

1. When faced with a difficult problem, how do you typically react?
A) Challenge the status quo and question the decision-making process.
B) Listen carefully and offer support and guidance to my team.
C) Speak up and make my opinions known, but may not always follow through with action.
D) Take on the challenge and work towards a promotion or recognition.
E) Shield my team from the problem and try to solve it on my own.

2. How do you communicate with your team?
A) Ask a lot of questions and challenge their ideas.
B) Listen attentively and offer feedback and support.
C) Speak up and make my opinions known, but may not always listen to my team’s input.
D) Focus on achieving goals and may not always take the time to communicate with my team.
E) Try to shield my team from negative feedback and criticism.

3. How do you prioritize work for your team?
A) Prefer to set priorities based on my understanding rather than having priorities set by others.
B) Listen to my team’s input and offer guidance on what is most important but ultimately take a bottom-up approach.
C) Prioritize work based on what will bring me recognition or a promotion.
D) Prioritize work based on what will benefit the team in the long run.
E) Prioritize work based on what will protect my team from failure or difficulty.