On humility and leading with empathy
summary
Anecdote of backing into a car and replacing a headlight leads to one clear claim: humility and empathy reduce harm in engineering teams. Evidence: humans feel wrongness as right, shame drives grand apologies or doubling down, and a single defusing line can change behavior. Practical tools: pull requests as rehearsal spaces, leaning curiosity to ask why and how, and the concrete practice to apologize sincerely while fixing the problem. Start small and iterate culture from the team up.
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chapters (6)
- 0:00Empathy and humility intro
- 1:32Personal humility story
- 2:57Why humility is hard
- 5:26Mistakes and apologies
- 7:54Engineers embracing wrong
- 10:03Key takeaways
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