It's pretty simple: engineers are professionals. Professionals make mistakes, but are most effective when allowed to own up to them without consequences and lea

It's pretty simple: engineers are professionals. Professionals make mistakes, but are most effective when allowed to own up to them without consequences and learn from them. In a good software team, a single developer's "big mistake" gets fixed by the whole team. I guarantee nobody on that entire team will make that same mistake; nor will they hold anything against the offending developer unless there's a pattern. But in short, empowerment is the most effective leadership style in this environment. It's not appropriate for all employees (specifically newer folks who need a bit more hand-holding at first) but for professional workers like engineers, it's really the only way to go -- especially if you have senior technical employees who have decades more experience than their manager.