🫐 Invisible Guns, Crafting Technical Strategy, Stakeholders, Team Temperatures, Better Retros, Flipping Burnout: TMW #457

Hello, hello, hello! Welcome to the week

CTO Craft Con: Financial Services is in London this week!

Technology leaders in the fintech and financial services sector face a relentless pace of technological innovation, tight regulatory demands, cybersecurity risks, and the constant pressure to scale systems reliably while enhancing user experience. At the event you’ll find tailored support to navigate these exact challenges: learning how to lead with clarity in a complex, fast-moving landscape that demands innovative tech solutions embedded in regulatory compliance and reliable operations.

This event is all about connecting you with peers who share your unique pressures and ambitions. The networking moments offer more than just contacts, they’re opportunities to exchange real-world strategies, break through isolated problem-solving, and reignite leadership energy through fresh perspectives and collective wisdom. If your goal is to lead your team and products with both confidence and insight, this event is crafted to meet those needs head-on.

There's still time to secure a spot, but the few remaining tickets are going quickly - grab yours here while you can, and see you in the Barbican!

That's it, on with the links! See you next Monday

Andy @ CTO Craft

CTO Craft Con - Dates for Your Diary

CTO Craft Con: The Finance Edition

Join CTO Craft Con: The Finance Edition in London - an intimate, community-centered gathering for engineering leaders to connect, learn through insightful sessions, and build real peer relationships in a supportive environment.

CTO Craft Con: The Finance Edition 2025

CTO Craft Con: London

Join CTO Craft Con: London - an intimate, community-centered gathering for engineering leaders to connect, learn through insightful sessions, and build real peer relationships in a supportive environment.

CTO Craft Con: London 2026

CTO Craft Con: Toronto

Join CTO Craft Con: Toronto- an intimate, community-centered gathering for engineering leaders to connect, learn through insightful sessions, and build real peer relationships in a supportive environment.

CTO Craft Con: Toronto 2026

Reads of the Week

You might be carrying an invisible gun

The more senior you get, the more your words start to sound like orders

The Modern LeaderKelly Vaughn

The Other PMF: Wes Kao’s Framework for Founders Who Want to Communicate — and Lead — Better

Tactical advice for founders on mastering “personality-message fit”: leaning into your natural communication style.

First RoundFirst Round Staff

Leadership, Strategy & Business

Crafting a Technical Strategy That Actually Works

Moving from disconnected decisions to a unified technical direction

It Depends: Lessons in Technology LeadershipKevin Goldsmith

“Why are my stakeholders so unreasonable?”

When “data-driven” leadership backfires.

Thoughtful EngineeringChristine Miao

The Leverage Ladder

Climb on up!

JoTJeff

My Leadership Rhythm: A Practical Structure for Strategic and Tactical Alignment Sessions

I’ve worked in leadership positions across a wide range of organisations and business domains for around 12 years now (of a 20+ year career in tech), so have seen a wide range of structures. How leadership teams communicate and collaborate, define and refine strategies and break down problems can va

LinkedInDan Ashby

Culture, People & Teams

Confronting the Bull in the Room

You know they’re wrong. They think they’ve seen and done it all. They’re senior, certain, and surrounded by people who don’t challenge them. What do you do?

Field NotesMia Kos

Thermostats | Another Rodeo

Tuning team temperature

Another Rodeo

Goal-Setting That Actually Works: 4 Powerful Strategies High-Performing Teams Rely On | David Burkus

Goal-setting is one of the most powerful tools a leader has. But most leaders don’t wield it nearly as well as they think.

David BurkusDavid Burkus

Speak So They Can Hear You

“My manager needs to put an ROI on everything,” an SRE leader told me at KubeCon this week. Yeah, I feel that. We know the value of SRE, smoothing all other work so that production can …

Jessitronjessitron

SPONSORED

Mind the Gap: Bridging from Sandbox to Scale

For senior tech leaders, the challenge isn’t proving AI’s potential; it’s scaling it responsibly. Mind the Gap: Bridging from Sandbox to Scale reveals the hidden organisational and governance barriers that keep promising projects stuck in pilot mode. Explore data-backed insights and proven strategies to help your teams turn experimentation into real, production-ready impact.

Learn how to take AI experiments into Production - Free Report

Technology, Operations & Delivery

Why your retrospectives don’t work and how to fix them

Hot takes and cold truths on software, startups, and the lies we tell ourselves.

Lucas F. CostaLucas F. Costa

The Testing Techniques We Couldn’t Afford (Until Now)

Sorry, But There’s Gonna Be Some Math On This Quiz

Dancing with Robots: A Software Architect's JourneyDave Griffith

Tech Leads in Scrum

Learn how Tech Leads fit in Scrum teams, differ from Scrum Masters, and get practical tips to make the role work in this context.

patkua.comPat Kua

AI Amplifies Team Strengths and Weaknesses in Software Development

In this podcast, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Jon Kern and Anita Zbieg about how AI amplifies both delivery efficiency and weaknesses in development teams, the importance of fundamental collaboration practices, and maintaining holistic system thinking.

InfoQJon Kern

Stress, Wellbeing & Growth

Flipping Burnout Into Leadership Practices - CoryMiller.com

Burnout is a thing. It’s a problem. We know that. But if you flip the Burnout Iceberg … you have key Leadership Practices — and a roadmap of ways to help you team give their best at work. A simple word for it is just: CONNECTION. And in work today, we have the HEAD side […]

CoryMiller.comadmin

Ness Letters: The Cost of Change

The Ness Letters are a weekly newsletter by Ness Labs, exploring how we can think better, work smarter, and live happier.

Ness Labs

TBM 389: Overthinker!

From a young age, being accused of “overcomplicating” or “overthinking” things felt like a dismissal of who I was.

The Beautiful MessJohn Cutler

That’s it!

If you’d like to be considered for the free CTO Craft Community, fill in your details here, and we’ll be in touch!

Interested in sponsoring TMW or any of our events? Check out some stats here

Please do remember to share this link if you know of anyone who’d like to receive TMW:

https://techmanagerweekly.com

Have an amazing week!

Andy