The #1 Skill That Determines How Far You'll Go In Your Career

How to get people to listen and actually care, not just comply out of obligation

When I first became a tech lead at Google many years ago, I was given my first big project and 3 other engineers to lead. With the enthusiasm of a naive first-timer, I got to work. I architected the solution, scoped out the work, and assigned the tasks. I thought my newfound TL title would give me the authority I needed to just tell people what to do, and that they would simply listen.

News flash: they didn’t.