Communication

Great communication is important for engineering managers as it allows them to lead and manage their teams effectively. Good communication is the key to having a more productive and collaborative environment. A manager's communication must be crisp and clear to reduce the risk of mistakes and help avoid any communication gaps. Engineering managers own and lead communication in various directions, such as communication with peer teams, cross-functional partners, customers, external partners, and with their own teams and leadership.

Managers must also know the appropriate level of detail while communicating. While it is good to be transparent in communication, sometimes it is the manager's responsibility to hold some information and communicate it at the right time. For example, in case of a reorg happening in the team, there will be a lot of collaboration, discussion, and brainstorming before the final plan. Managers should know what level of information to provide to the team before the reorg happens and how to communicate it so that it doesn't create anxiety in the team.

During the interview process, it is important to evaluate the communication skills of engineering managers. Two aspects of communication are evaluated with regard to communication skills. There are targeted questions to evaluate the candidate's collaboration skills with partners, teams, and leadership. These questions are covered in other sections of this course. Typically, this communication skill is not evaluated in the behavioral interview. The aspect of communication evaluated during behavioral interviews is how well you communicate during the interview. This means that you are judged on how well articulated and coherent your answers are, how clear and proactive you are in the communication process, and how well you respond to ambiguous situations. Behavioral interviews of engineering managers are conducted by senior leadership, and they particularly evaluate your communication skills.

Improving communication

You can do the following to do better during interviews to improve your communication.

• Be a good listener since it is a very important part of communication. Carefully listening to the question will help you process the question faster.

• Ask the right questions. If you are not clear about something, ask clarifying questions. Some of the questions may be ambiguous intentionally.