Know the three management roles in most companies.

Rands explains it well here: https://randsinrepose.com/archives/tear-it-down/

The importance of understanding these hats is really critical to becoming an effective engineering manager in an organization. Every successful company that I've seen has been involved with that cosmic interplay between tactics and strategy (it sounds so stereotypical and hackneyed but we keep coming back to it because the model is useful).

Even solo entrepreneurs (of growing tech companies) can be evaluated like primordial big bang singularities with these three roles running around inside them: a lead focused on tactics, a director focused on strategy, and the bridge between them (the lead of leads). And again managers keenly aware of these roles can then move in and out of them ever so carefully to smooth things out when there are gaps in the organization. Is there a temporary gap in executive leadership? Know to dialup strategy and look for ways to lead this informally. Is there a gap in communication between strategy and tactics? Know which role to temporarily assume or which people to talk to and help grow (i.e., 'manage' upwards/sideways/downwards).

EM tip #1: to be a great engineer it helps to work backwards from what a manager is focused on as well. And to be a great manager within an organization it helps to work backwards from what directors and managers of managers are doing. Know the structure of modern companies that follow this paradigm so that friction in strategic or tactical areas doesn't slow you down.

Second-order tip: this applies beyond engineering organizations. You can practice the strategy and tactics duality within your own life or career. It's only within a larger organization that differentiation of the roles across multiple people happens.