The Result:

1. You still go home at 5.

2. You look like a process-oriented leader, not a rebel.

3. You force the manager to own the mistake without bruising their ego.

Don't let a bad manager bait you into a bad reaction.

✅ The Sibyl Way:

"I want to ensure this deck meets our quality standards, which isn't possible with a rush job tonight. I’ve completed my section weeks ago. To prevent this crunch in Q4, can we set up a retro next week to align on timelines earlier? I'll pick this back up at 9 AM."

Here is the Sibyl way to translate Alex's anger into "Promotable Boundaries":

❌ The Alex Way:

"Your procrastination doesn't constitute my overtime."

We all wish we could say what Alex said. It’s satisfying. It’s fair. It’s the truth.

But in the corporate world, being "right" in the wrong tone gets you labeled as "difficult" or "not leadership material."

You don't need to work the overtime. You just need to change the script.

Manager: “So you’re just going to leave the team hanging?”
Alex: “No. I’m teaching you that your procrastination doesn't constitute my overtime.”

Alex went home.
The deck was late.
The world kept turning.

Manager: “Alex, this is an all-hands-on-deck emergency.”
Alex: “It’s only an emergency because you sat on the brief for two weeks.”
Manager: “We sink or swim together. I need team players right now.”
Alex: “I am a team player. I played my part by finishing my assigned tasks on time last week.”

If you want to get the Devil and the Angel for yourself (and have some L&D budget you need to burn), I opened up a second batch of beta spots.

Tags: #BuildInPublic #SaaS #AI #Engineering

The AI flagged a "Disappearing Act".

The user was about to credit luck for their own engineering work.

Due to correcting it live, their manager’s reaction went from "cool" to "Make sure you put this in your promo packet."

That’s the difference between being a safe pair of hands and being a Lead.

But then something weird happened. The "coaching" features they were ignoring started working by accident.

Users realized the AI wasn't just taking notes – it was a Devil kicking you for underselling and an Angel telling you what to say.

One user sent me their logs. This interaction blew my mind.

That’s the most neutral out of all of my ideas for the unhinged retro template 😅

Building with NextJS. It uses WebRTC for peer-to-peer data sync so I don't store your retro data on my servers. The 'Unhinged' templates are just CSS variables gone wrong.

Leading humans is messy. I write about the psychology of high-performance teams every week.

Join The Resonant Manager:

www.theresonantmanager.com?utm_source=b...

Don't default to public praise.

Ask your team: "How do you like to be recognized?"

Tailor the recognition to the receiver, not the audience.

Public praise also risks signaling that only "visible" work matters.

The people doing the unsexy maintenance work often get ignored, while the feature-shippers get the applause.

Know your players.

I had a top engineer who quit because he hated being called out in All-Hands meetings. He felt it put a target on his back.

He just wanted a quiet DM saying "Good job."

Most management advice is outdated. I write about what modern tech leaders are actually doing.
Get the systems and secrets weekly:

www.theresonantmanager.com?utm_source=b...

The Takeaway:
You don't need 40 direct reports, but you do need to stop information filtering.
Try a weekly "Top 5" slack thread where everyone posts their priorities publicly.

When he replies, he doesn't reply just to the sender.
He copies everyone relevant.
This destroys silos.
Information flows directly to the top, and strategy flows directly back down - visibly.

Most CEOs rely on 1:1s to know what's going on.
Jensen hates them.
Instead, every employee can send him their "Top 5 Things" email.
He reads dozens every morning.