The Curious Engineer

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Leading Sapiens

leadingsapiens.com

Master the Art, Science, and Practice of Leadership.

Essays / personalEngineering management / careers

’22’23’24’25’26
Posts
166 from 27 May 2022 to 14 May 2026
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monthly (19 in the last year)
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personal blog
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2026 17

  1. Evidence: How Real Confidence Is Built
  2. From Amtrak to Antarctica: Intention - Perception - Strategy
  3. Why Words Fail: The Hidden But More Important Layer in Effective Interactions
  4. Ethos: The Art of Building Trust and Credibility
  5. Three Axioms of Effective Leadership
  6. Logic of Self vs. Logic of Role (And Why Confusing the Two Is a Trap)
  7. The Philosophy Behind the Johari Awareness Model
  8. Active Listening: What It Originally Meant
  9. Leading Imperfectly: Less Intervening, More Being
  10. Aristotle's Pathos: An Ancient Remedy for Modern Leadership
  11. Legitimate Power: Authority and Power are Not the Same Thing
  12. Decisional Self vs Performative Self: Why Decisions Don’t Translate into Actions
  13. The Five Johari Leadership Archetypes
  14. The Power of Congruence
  15. Four Levels of Communication
  16. Hope vs. Realism: The Stockdale Paradox
  17. The Dreyfus Model of Skill Acquisition — A Deep Dive

2025 23

  1. Experiential Learning Cycle
  2. ICs vs Managers vs Leaders: Why Real Leadership is Rare
  3. How's Your Adaptive Capacity?
  4. Transformative Learning in Leadership Coaching
  5. Core Practices of Adaptive Leadership
  6. Adaptive Leadership: What It Means and Why It's Essential
  7. On fishes, frames, and messes
  8. McChrystal on Leadership Myth and Reality
  9. Competing Languages of Leadership
  10. Career Myths: Lies We Are Sold
  11. Leadership Derailment: How Good Managers Go Bad
  12. Technical Problems vs Adaptive Challenges
  13. Multi-Frame Thinking
  14. Leadership Myths that Persist
  15. Belief Triggers — Why Smart People Fail to Change
  16. Please Exceed your Authority
  17. Leonardo’s Code: A Blueprint for Timeless Work
  18. Work is Not School: Surviving Institutional Stupidity
  19. The Leadership Shadow: When Strengths Backfire
  20. Open Quadrant of the Johari Window: Beyond Transparency in Leadership
  21. Schrodinger’s Cat at Work II: Building the Box of Limitations
  22. Schrödinger’s Cat at Work: When Performance and Perception Collide
  23. Frustration Tolerance: An Essential for Surviving Large Orgs

2024 32

  1. Self Efficacy: A Better Construct than Confidence
  2. Cognitive Flexibility: Rewiring How Leaders Respond
  3. Impression Management: How Effective Leaders Balance Perception and Reality
  4. Fundamental Attribution Error: Why It’s Always Someone Else’s Fault
  5. Psychological Safety vs. High Standards: A Misunderstood Dynamic
  6. Mintzberg’s Managerial Roles: The Multifaceted Nature of Leadership
  7. Leading Loosely: Leadership in Loosely Coupled Systems
  8. Loose Coupling: Rethinking Control in Organizations
  9. Self-Disclosure: A Balancing Act in Leadership
  10. Metaphors of Organization: Beyond the Machine
  11. Humble Inquiry: How Asking and Situational Humility Create Psychological Safety
  12. Organizational Learning Disabilities: Responding as a Leader
  13. Project Aristotle: Implications and Challenges
  14. Referent Power: The Subtle Tool of Effective Leadership
  15. Expert Power — How Knowledge Becomes Influence
  16. Coercive Power: A Double-Edged Sword in Modern Leadership
  17. The 6 Types of Power: A Guide for Leaders
  18. The Symbolic Frame of Leadership
  19. The Human Resource Frame of Leadership
  20. The Political Frame of Leadership
  21. The Structural Frame of Leadership
  22. Is it up to you? The Stoic Dichotomy of Control.
  23. Circle of Control, Influence, and Acceptance: Where to Focus Your Energy
  24. The Trust Triangle of Leadership
  25. Sources of Power in Organizations
  26. Assertive Inquiry
  27. Ethos, Pathos & Logos: How Leaders Win Trust, Inspire Action, and Persuade
  28. Balancing Advocacy and Inquiry
  29. Filters in Communication
  30. Locus of Control: A Leadership Perspective
  31. 20 Leadership Capacities based on Systems Thinking
  32. The Systems Thinking Iceberg

2023 35

  1. Cognitive Distortions that Undermine Clear Thinking
  2. 7 Principles of Effective Constructive Feedback
  3. The Johari Window: A Guide for Leaders
  4. Ground rules for effective meetings
  5. If Vincent van Gogh Was Your Career Coach
  6. Amazon's 16 Leadership Principles: A Deep Dive
  7. The Laws of Systems Thinking
  8. The Amazon Management and Decision Making System
  9. Herzberg Hygiene Factors: Why People Leave Managers, not Jobs
  10. Creative Breakthroughs and Insights — Busting Common Myths and How to Get Better at It
  11. Viktor Frankl’s Laws of Dimensional Ontology and The Fallacy of the Dominant Dimension
  12. Problem-Solving is Overrated. Problem-Setting is More Critical.
  13. Thinking Long-Term in Work: Careers as Practice and Art
  14. The Type of Courage Needed in Modern Leadership and Organizations
  15. The Deliberate Amateur
  16. Conceptual vs Experiential learning
  17. How Double-Loop Learning Improves Performance
  18. Bolman Deal Four Frames Model of Leadership
  19. Authentic leadership as knowing what your people actually do
  20. The Power of Framing in Creating Psychological Safety
  21. How Leaders Botch OKRs and Strategy
  22. Wisdom and Insight are Not Quite Portable
  23. Mental Models - A Subtractive Approach
  24. The Best Leadership Style - There Might Not be One
  25. Blake Mouton Leadership Grid: The 5 Leadership Styles
  26. Design Principles for Practicing Reflection
  27. Do Leaders Have to Be Confident?
  28. Why Netflix Leads with Context not Control
  29. MBWA : The Lost Art of Managing by Wandering Around
  30. Still In Search of Excellence — Attributes of the Best Run Companies
  31. The Stupidity of My SMART Goals - Mistakes and Learnings
  32. Why We Copy Leaders — A Complexity Point of View
  33. Warren Bennis on Self Invention and Authenticity in Leadership
  34. Leadership as More a Decision than Skill or Ability
  35. Andy Grove on Balancing Top-down vs Bottom-up Approaches to Leadership

2022 58

  1. Gen. Stan McChrystal: The Leader as Gardener
  2. James MacGregor Burns on Self-Actualization, Self-Esteem and Effective Leadership
  3. EQ vs IQ: Misled and Oversold on Emotional Intelligence
  4. Creative Leaders vs Controlling Leaders
  5. The Dark Side of Active Listening
  6. Singular Big Bet vs Multiple Small Bets-Two Contrasting Approaches to Strategy
  7. John Doerr on OKR Hygiene
  8. Barbara Kellerman on the Blindspots in Leadership Development
  9. The Case for Naive Leaders over Clever, Sophisticated Ones
  10. Peter Drucker’s Memo to Elon Musk on Managing Knowledge Work
  11. Donald Schon on The Paradox of Real Learning
  12. Strategy as Tetris rather than Chess
  13. Carl Rogers On Why Teaching is Overrated
  14. Four Types Of Careers and their Learning Barriers
  15. On Managing the Flow of Information and Influence
  16. How Implicit Leadership Theory Affects Careers
  17. Why Developing Negative Capability is Critical in Leadership
  18. Strategy of Small Wins and Small Bets - Typical Mistakes and How to Get it Right
  19. Metanoia-Learning as a Strategy
  20. Essential Midlife Career Change Frameworks & Mental Models
  21. The Mundanity of Excellence - Greatness as Mastering the Mundane
  22. Strategic Agility - Balancing future focus with current actions
  23. How Bezos thinks - All his mental models and frameworks
  24. Linear Causality vs Circular Causality in Decision Making
  25. Leadership can't be taught but can be learned. How coaching can help
  26. Using Deliberate Practice to Increase Leadership Effectiveness
  27. Using the ladder of inference to make better decisions
  28. Three Pillars and Two Contexts of Modern Leadership
  29. Leaders have to Master Basics of the Human OS
  30. A Framework for Year End Review - Qualities, not Outcomes
  31. Hidden Role of Language in Leadership Communication
  32. Types of Goals - Nuances of Effective Goals
  33. Paradoxes in leadership and management
  34. Types of Contradictions in Organizations
  35. There's no need to eliminate or even overcome self-doubt.
  36. Speed as the Wrong Criteria
  37. Technology Dumbs you Down - Problem with Formulaic Leadership
  38. The Set of Our Sail - Key Questions for Work and Life
  39. Tyranny of Content/Control – Why Leaders Keep Ignoring Context
  40. Essential questions for a midlife career change
  41. On the Differences between Leaders and Managers
  42. Challenges of Experts Transitioning into Leadership
  43. Communicating Effectively using Closure Conversations
  44. Effective Leadership as Effective Conversations
  45. Setting high standards and clear expectations in leadership
  46. Self Development in Leadership
  47. Pulled by the Future vs Pushed by the Past
  48. What Makes Leaders Effective - Practices, not Charisma
  49. Good Careers Gone Bad - Subtle Mistakes in Mid Career
  50. Learning to Learn - Why Professionals Struggle in this Skill
  51. Leadership Requires Understanding Time Differently
  52. Building an identity through conscious choices and actions
  53. Leadership reflection: a meta skill for effective leadership
  54. Mastering Context: Leadership is a Context Sport
  55. Just Do It - Changing Mindset through Action
  56. The link between leadership, authenticity, and time
  57. Setting Goals For The Year? First Ask These 3 Questions
  58. Hidden Drivers of Performance - Basics of the Human OS

Undated 1

  1. Building vs buying complexity the pleasure of process