Why Technical Excellence Isn’t Enough: The Mindset Shift Every Emerging Tech Leader Must Make
There’s a moment in almost every technical career where the path suddenly forks.
You’re great at what you do. You ship. You solve. You architect. You carry complex systems in your head. And then someone says:
“You should lead.”
If you’ve been there, you know the unspoken truth: the things that made you exceptional as an engineer won’t automatically make you effective as a leader.
This shift is bigger than people realize. It’s not just new responsibilities; it’s a different way of thinking, communicating, and creating impact. In the latest Project Gamma episode, Warner Moore unpacked this transition with technologist and CTO Kevin Mack, whose non-linear journey from design to engineering to hardware leadership has shaped his approach to building products, teams, and culture.
Before we explore the leadership principles, it’s worth understanding why Kevin’s story is such a powerful example of what today’s engineering leaders need.
Kevin’s Journey: The Non-Linear Background That Became a Leadership Advantage
Kevin didn’t map out a traditional engineering career. He grew up surrounded by art and originally expected to follow a legal path like his father. But design projects, curiosity about technology, and the need to support his band pulled him into building digital experiences. That curiosity evolved into roles in web development, UX, engineering, mobile innovation, startup advising, co-founding a consumer tech company, and ultimately becoming CTO of RVMP.
What makes his path so useful for emerging leaders is not the titles he held, but how each step taught him to see the world from a different angle. He learned how designers think, how engineers think, how marketers think, how founders think, and eventually, how teams think. This gave him a leadership advantage: he could bridge disciplines, translate ideas, and make decisions grounded not just in technical correctness, but in human experience.
One lesson from an early mentor stayed with him throughout that journey: “It’s never me. It’s always we.”
It became the foundation of how he leads teams, collaborates across functions, and builds products with purpose.
With his story as context, here are the core principles that matter to anyone moving toward engineering leadership today.
1. Leadership Isn’t a Promotion, It’s a New Profession Entirely
Many engineers enter management believing it’s simply the next rung on the ladder. It isn’t. Leadership requires a fundamentally different mindset.
Engineers succeed by solving complex problems themselves. Leaders succeed by helping other people solve problems, and sometimes by stepping back so they can. That requires new muscles: clarity, delegation, expectation-setting, coordination, and the ability to make decisions with incomplete information.
As Kevin put it in the conversation: “You have to stop thinking about why it’s hard and start thinking about what matters most.”
Leadership becomes easier once you acknowledge that you’re not “graduating” from engineering, you’re learning a new discipline built on communication, influence, and strategic thinking.
2. You Don’t Have to Manage People to Grow
One of the most refreshing insights from the episode is the reminder that not everyone needs to (or wants to) manage others. For many engineers, what brings fulfillment is depth, not direct reports. Modern organizations increasingly recognize this by offering strong technical tracks where people can grow through expertise, architecture, mentorship, and strategic impact rather than team management.
Forcing great engineers into management roles they didn’t choose is one of the fastest ways to lose them. Kevin’s experiences highlight the importance of allowing people to grow in the direction that aligns with their strengths. Some leaders guide teams. Others guide technology. Both paths are essential.
3. Real Leadership Replaces “I” With “We”
The best leaders understand that their success is measured through collective outcomes, not personal victories. Kevin’s guiding principle, “It’s never me. It’s always we”, captures this perfectly.
This approach doesn’t diminish a leader’s contribution; it heightens the entire team. When leaders step forward during setbacks and step back during wins, they build trust. Teams become more willing to take ownership, raise concerns early, and contribute ideas that improve the work. The shift from “I built this” to “we built this” is a quiet but powerful transformation that separates managers from leaders people actually want to follow.
4. Mission Keeps Teams Aligned When Nothing Else Does
Tools change. Roadmaps shift. Priorities evolve. What holds teams together is shared purpose.
At RVMP, values like The Heart of the Underdog and The Golden Rule inform every decision, from how products are built to how partners are treated. This mission-driven approach is especially visible in their Flex Security division, where the goal is not just to innovate but to keep communities safer. When work carries meaning beyond profit, the team stays aligned even during hard cycles or high-pressure releases. That purpose becomes fuel.
Leaders who can articulate why their team is building something, not just what they’re building, are the ones who keep motivation strong and culture healthy.
4. Mission Keeps Teams Aligned When Nothing Else Does
Tools change. Roadmaps shift. Priorities evolve. What holds teams together is shared purpose.
At RVMP, values like The Heart of the Underdog and The Golden Rule inform every decision, from how products are built to how partners are treated. This mission-driven approach is especially visible in their Flex Security division, where the goal is not just to innovate but to keep communities safer. When work carries meaning beyond profit, the team stays aligned even during hard cycles or high-pressure releases. That purpose becomes fuel.
Leaders who can articulate why their team is building something, not just what they’re building, are the ones who keep motivation strong and culture healthy.
The hidden cost of delegating hiring
Most engineering leaders understand the direct cost of a bad hire: salary, ramp time, missed objectives. But the deeper impact is harder to quantify. Hiring someone who lacks technical judgment, loses trust during incidents, or can’t lead a team through complexity creates friction that spreads across the entire engineering organization.
These costs do not appear in your recruiting dashboards. They surface in slower technical decisions, weaker incident response, and senior engineers quietly disengaging from leadership they no longer trust. A single misaligned hire can stall architectural progress, create confusion around ownership, and erode momentum across teams.
Hiring is a technical decision with long-term consequences. When you hire well, the benefit compounds. When you delegate it too far away from engineering leadership, the impact becomes a tax your teams carry quietly, sprint after sprint.
This work belongs to you
If you’re leading engineering or security, hiring is not adjacent to your role; it is your role. You can delegate coordination and get help sourcing. But the decisions that shape your team, your architecture, and your future cannot be handed off without consequence.
If you want to hear more of Chad White’s perspective on executive hiring strategy, human-first recruiting, and career coaching for tech leaders, you can listen to the full conversation on Project Gamma.
🎧 Episode Title: Purpose Over Paycheck: Building Teams Is the Job, Not a Task
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And if you need support building cybersecurity teams that scale, we’re here to help, without taking the wheel. Learn more about Fractional CISO services from Gamma Force.
Further reading and useful tools:
If you want to go deeper into leadership development, decision-making, and engineering management, these resources pair well with the themes in this article and the insights discussed in Episode 13 of Project Gamma.
Books
Essays of Warren Buffett by Lawrence A. Cunningham
- A masterclass in long-term thinking, organizational discipline, and leadership clarity.
- Buffett’s principles apply surprisingly well to engineering leadership, especially around decision-making and building high-trust teams.
Beyond Entrepreneurship 2.0 (BE 2.0) by Jim Collins
- One of the strongest books on company building, leadership values, and scaling with purpose.
- Collins’ frameworks complement the “mission-first” and “we, not me” philosophy discussed in this article.
The Staff Engineer’s Path by Tanya Reilly
- Ideal for engineers who want to grow technically without moving into people management.
The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo
- A practical guide for new managers navigating their first leadership role.
High Output Management by Andrew Grove
- A classic for anyone starting to think about systems, processes, and performance at scale.
About Project Gamma: Project Gamma, where technology meets leadership. Hosted by Warner Moore, vCISO and Founder of Gamma Force, this podcast features insightful conversations with industry leaders who are shaping the future of tech.
