A leadership meeting. A discussion about raises. I brought the cases, the evidence, the numbers. Everything fit the budget.
Some people would get a raise thanks to their strong results on their projects, plus everything they did on top of it: talks, courses, posts, helping at events. Above and beyond.
A couple of Sr Engineers wouldn’t get a raise this round. They were the best on their project but hadn’t done more than that, and they’d had a raise recently.
When we asked the CTO if anyone else should get a raise, he said no. He was busy reviewing architecture changes for several projects.
He was always busy, looking for improvements everywhere. But he wasn’t really in the meetings.
We lived by the law of two feet: if you’re not learning or adding anything, walk out, no problem. We even pushed for effective meetings: time, topic, expected outcome, context. And presence.
He stayed. He just wasn’t there.
The back door
Later on, when reviewing numbers with finance, I found out that the two Sr Engineers got their raises. The CTO approved them himself, and that money came out of the same budget as everyone else’s.
When I asked him why, his reason was fair. Those two were on the most important project, they were performing well, and at the time people were leaving so keeping them made sense.
Of course I would have supported it.
But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that we had a meeting for exactly that decision, and he chose to stay out of it. Then, he made it anyway, on his own, and nobody told me.
I brought it up in our next leadership meeting. The response was:
“It slipped my mind, I was reviewing this technical thing.”
It didn’t surprise me as it wasn’t the first time. Before I was the COO, whenever a decision about people came up, he’d say “that’s not my decision” and let HR or the CEO handle it. He preferred to operate. Technical improvements, architecture, things he had mastered. Decisions that could change something or make him look bad, he avoided.
What he told me
We talked about it more than once, over many drinks. Then, one of those times he told me straight that he felt shaky. That he thought I wanted his position.
Oh, I never did. So I told him something he didn’t know:
I’m afraid too. You know so much. Every time I ask you something, I feel like I know nothing. I walk away discouraged for not being useful, with a head full of ideas to research.
He was “THE” CTO, my technical reference, the “go to” for anything tech.
He laughed: “Ah, pinche Mumo.”
We both cracked up and raised a beer.
Not quite micromanagement
That isn’t the classic version. Nobody was hovering over my shoulder asking if it was done yet.
It was the same fear underneath.
When you’re not sure your value still holds at your level, you hide in the work you master. You stay out of the uncomfortable conversation. And when the decision lands somewhere you don’t control, you take control back through the back door.
Micromanagement is the loud side of that. The quiet side looks like being busy with architecture.
Fear and distrust feed each other. The less you trust the people around a decision, the more you protect yourself from it. The more you protect yourself, the less anyone can trust you with it.
What changed
The question isn’t:
“Do you trust your people?”
It’s closer to:
“What does your contribution look like from here?”
For him, it was being present for the raises, not busy with architecture.
Saying the problem out loud is what opened that conversation. It usually is.
After that talk, he took part more. Decisions started moving as a team.