Most leadership candidates don’t have a skill gap but a signal gap. These are, effectively, patterns that down-rank you for Tech Lead/EM/Head roles.
In this quick guide, we’ll briefly explain the 7 most common mistakes and provide fixes that translate your work into scope, influence, and outcomes.
If your career map leads to senior technology leadership, this is how you want to tweak both your LinkedIn profile and resume.
But first, you need to understand what hiring managers look for when they browse through CVs or LinkedIn profiles.
The Leadership Signals Hiring Managers Scan For (quick context)
When a hiring manager opens your CV/LinkedIn, they’re not trying to confirm you can build. They’re scanning for leadership readiness or, in other words, signals that you can own outcomes, make good decisions under constraints, and align people to deliver.
4 Cues They Look For (often in the first 20 seconds):
- Scope: What size problem did you own? (domain, platform, product area, budget/headcount, #services/regions/customers, etc.)
- Judgment: What tradeoffs did you make, and why? (prioritization, risk, architecture, sequencing, build vs buy)
- Influence: Who did you align, and how? (Product, Security, Legal, Finance, Sales, other engineering teams)
- Outcomes: What changed because of your leadership? (speed, reliability, cost, revenue, risk reduction—ideally with a number)
If your profile is heavy on tools and tasks but light on these four signals, it can unintentionally read as “great engineer” rather than “ready to lead”—even if you’re already doing leadership work.
7 Mistakes with the Fixes
Mistake #1: Task/tech lists instead of outcomes
Why does it read “IC”? It proves you shipped work, but not that you owned impact or direction. Hiring managers can’t tell what changed because of you.
Fix: Rewrite bullets as Outcome → Scope → Decision → Proof (keep the tech as supporting detail, not the headline).
Example rewrite:
- Instead of: “Migrated services to Kubernetes using Helm and ArgoCD.”
- Try: “Improved release reliability and cut deployment time 45→8 minutes across 12 services by standardizing delivery (ArgoCD/Helm) and aligning teams on one release workflow.”
Mistake #2: “Led X engineers” with no leadership mechanics
Why does it read “IC”? Headcount is a fact, not evidence. Without how you lead, it looks like people management without ownership.
Fix: Add your operating cadence + constraints + cross-functional surface area (how you set direction and keep delivery moving).
Example rewrite:
- Instead of: “Led a team of 6 engineers.”
- Try: “Led 6 engineers across 2 squads; set quarterly priorities with Product, ran weekly execution reviews, and unblocked delivery by renegotiating scope/dependencies.”
Mistake #3: Stakeholders are invisible (influence stops at your code)
Why does it read “IC”? Leadership is influence under ambiguity. If Product/Security/Legal/Finance never appear, it looks like you only led yourself.
Fix: Name stakeholders + tradeoffs + alignment artifacts (how you earned buy-in: RFCs, roadmap alignment, risk reviews, decision logs).
Example rewrite:
- Instead of: “Implemented SSO improvements.”
- Try: “Aligned Security, Legal, and Platform on an identity roadmap; introduced risk-based rollout gates and secured buy-in for a phased migration with minimal customer disruption.”
Mistake #4: Metrics missing (or vanity metrics only)
Why does it read “IC”? Without measurable impact, your work feels like an activity. Vanity metrics (“improved performance”) don’t translate into business value.
Fix: Pick one metric that maps to business outcomes: reliability, speed, revenue protection, cost, risk reduction.
Example rewrite:
- Instead of: “Improved system performance.”
- Try: “Reduced p95 latency 420ms→180ms, improving checkout completion and lowering infra cost by ~18% through query optimization and caching changes.”
Mistake #5: Ownership boundaries unclear (what was actually yours?)
Why does it read “IC”? If it’s unclear what you owned end-to-end, it reads like a contribution on someone else’s plan.
Fix: Show the zone you owned: a roadmap slice, platform/domain, KPI, or a program with clear boundaries and outcomes.
Example rewrite:
- Instead of: “Worked on observability and incident response.”
- Try: “Owned reliability for Payments (SLOs + incident process); reduced Sev-1 incidents by 35% by introducing error budgets, standardized runbooks, and on-call load balancing.”
Mistake #6: Over-indexing on tools and under-selling decisions
Why does it read “IC”? Tools are replaceable; decisions are leadership. If your bullets are mostly “used X,” you’re signaling implementation, not judgment.
Fix: Add one sentence on the tradeoff and why it mattered (what you chose, what you avoided, and the reason).
Example rewrite:
- Instead of: “Implemented Kafka for event streaming.”
- Try: “Chose Kafka over synchronous APIs to decouple teams and reduce failure propagation; introduced schema governance to prevent breaking changes as the org scaled.”
Mistake #7: Generic summaries (buzzwords) instead of a leadership thesis
Why does it read “IC”? “Results-driven, collaborative, passionate about innovation” tells nothing. Leaders have a clear point of view on what they build and how they lead.
Fix: Write a one-line positioning statement: “I build ___ by leading ___ to achieve ___.”
Example rewrite:
- Instead of: “Engineering leader with strong communication skills.”
- Try: “I build reliable platforms by leading cross-functional teams to improve delivery speed and reduce operational risk at scale.”
10-minute Teardown Checklist
Open your CV/LinkedIn and scan it like a hiring manager would— extremely fast. In 10 minutes, you can spot (and fix) the most common “great engineer, not ready to lead” signals.
Check your top section (headline + most recent role) and answer:
- Do your top 3 bullets contain a number?
If not, add one outcome metric (speed, reliability, cost, revenue protection, risk reduction). Even a directional metric beats none. - Do you name stakeholders?
Look for at least one mention of who you aligned with (Product, Security, Legal, Finance, Sales, other teams). Leadership shows up as influence. - Do you show one tradeoff?
Add a single sentence that proves judgment: what you chose, what you didn’t, and why (build vs buy, risk vs speed, scalability vs time-to-market). - Do you state the scope?
Make the size of the problem obvious: domain/platform owned, #services/squads, users/regions, budget, or a KPI you owned end-to-end.
If you can’t answer “yes” to at least 3 out of 4, your profile is probably underselling your leadership readiness, regardless of how strong your actual work is.
Key Takeaways
- Leadership readiness is a signal game. Your CV/LinkedIn needs to show scope, judgment, influence, and outcomes right from the beginning.
- Tools don’t get you promoted—decisions do. Keep tech as a supporting detail, but lead with the tradeoffs you made and why they mattered.
- Ownership must be obvious. Make it clear what you owned end-to-end (domain/platform/KPI), who you aligned with, and what changed as a result.
- One strong metric beats five vague claims. Pick a single business-relevant measure (speed, reliability, cost, revenue protection, risk reduction) and anchor your top bullets to it.
Bottom line: If your profile reads like a changelog, it will be evaluated like an IC profile—even if you’re already leading.
