Spies and Gatekeepers
Explore how to manage confidential information responsibly as a software engineering manager. Understand the importance of ethical behavior when handling sensitive data, avoid unauthorized information access, and learn how to act as a gatekeeper to control communication effectively. This lesson helps you develop skills to navigate workplace politics and share information appropriately to support your team and organization.
Access to sensitive information
Take a moment and consider a piece of confidential information. What comes to mind? A redacted dossier leaked from the FBI? The inside of Area 51? The salary information of your direct reports? As a manager, you’re going to have access to all sorts of sensitive information, whether you like it or not. In your one-on-ones, you’ll talk about confidential topics, professional and personal. Additionally, as a manager, others may divulge secrets to you, knowing that they can come to you in confidence. Or worse, they may spread rumors to attempt to curry favor with you.
Before we dive into covering how to share just enough information and how to handle workplace politics, let’s look at two concepts related to information to glean some insights into how you should think about the information that you collect as a manager.
Let’s start with a sexy topic: espionage. Spies are cool, right? James Bond escapes the exploding train via the window with merely seconds to spare, clutching the laptop that’s storing the nuclear launch ...