Are People Your Biggest Worry?

A reflection on how leaders allocate their time between people skills and craft (domain expertise). While navigating org politics and stakeholder management can feel like progress, over-investing in social maneuvering causes core technical and domain skills to atrophy. The best leaders use people skills to create conditions for craft to thrive, not as a substitute for it. A career progression model is outlined: junior engineers are craft-rich but politics-blind, mid-level engineers gain influence at some cost to craft, and senior engineers face a fork between politicking and returning to craft excellence.