"However, what I struggle with a lot is that there's absolutely no manual for this role. Everything is my problem, yet nothing is my problem." For me, that las

"However, what I struggle with a lot is that there's absolutely no manual for this role. Everything is my problem, yet nothing is my problem." For me, that last sentence is the most empowering. The essence of the CTO role is the ultimate responsibility for 'technology', yet you are often not the actual leader that controls the technology. It is one of the hardest concepts to make work because it relies on your own deeper understanding of the technology AND the people that are trying to use it. You are constantly trying to predict what the outcome will be so you can decided what to influence, which is like pushing on slushy water. "Failures are concentrated (blameless post-mortems mean that it's the culture or environment that's wrong, guess who is responsible for the environment!) and successes are amortised (credit should go to the team who are hands on, of course)." That is a really good compact statement about the crossover between credit and responsibility - and it really pushes hard that post-mortems are important. I have said more than once at a post-mortem - "Just to start us out, all of the failures are my fault, so lets leave the arrows pointing at me and dig in". Sometimes that is the only way to get people to open up and focus on the truths and not worry about the arrow. Just remember that managing upward is a different task.