"The release manager as shock absorber"
Have you ever found yourself carrying all the stress so others don’t have to? That's exactly what our release manager did, they cared deeply about safe releases. So deeply, in fact, that they took on more and more of the responsibility themselves. They planned the release meetings. They tracked what was going live. They stayed glued to the process until it finished. If something went wrong, they owned the fallout. On the surface, it looked like diligence. But in reality, every step they absorbed pulled developers further away from production. The people writing the code felt less and less connected to the responsibility of releasing it safely. The irony? By taking on the full burden, the release manager made the system riskier, not safer. Here’s what I’ve learned: protecting isn’t always enabling. When one person becomes the shock absorber, everyone else stays comfortable — and unaccountable. If we want teams to grow, the pain has to be distributed. Shared risk leads to shared responsibility. Until next time, ✉️ Enjoying The Messy Middle? If someone sent this email your way and you’d like to get it direct, you can sign up here. |