Everyone has some kind of skill. Firing people if you’re empowered to do so is often more a demonstration of your competence than the firee. I’ve managed group

Everyone has some kind of skill. Firing people if you’re empowered to do so is often more a demonstration of your competence than the firee. I’ve managed groups and divisions of companies with up to about a thousand people. There’s always going to be an IQ and EQ bell curve and scale in people’s motivation. That said, I’ve found that everyone has some quality that got them to where they are. Make an honest effort to determine what that is, and optimize for that. If you don’t, that’s cool… but you’ll be surprised to learn one day that someone thinks you’re just a narrow focused engineer capable of limited tasks. I found myself in a position where I clashed with a dude out into a technical leadership role way over his head. We were peers, in different areas, and my emotional reaction was “this guy is an idiot”. Reality was he’s a pretty mediocre tech talent, but a savant about understanding the bigger picture and managing up. Once we figured each other out, we got along and became friends, we have lunch every once in awhile years later.