Scenario 2—You enable a narcissistic engineering culture

An engineering manager takes on the leadership of an engineering team. The team is skilled, effective, and efficient, and the manager is happy to lead such a capable team. The manager gets to work supporting and empowering the team. The engineering team is tight-knit; they enjoy each other’s company and make challenging work fun with comradery and jokes. Sometimes, the manager notices that their team’s jokes are at the expense of other teams within the company—for instance, the design team, the product team, the analytics team, or the business development team. Don’t even get them started on the marketing team. The manager thinks this is harmless—after all, they aren’t hurting anyone or being directly rude—so they ignore it and let the team have their fun. Gradually, the engineering team’s lighthearted jokes evolve into cemented opinions. The design team is annoying...