I’ve been writing relatively regularly on Medium since the beginning of 2023. At the time of writing, I have published 29 stories, and I have around 60 drafts at different stages; most of them may never be read by someone that’s not me. I’m struggling to finish an article I’m happy about and that struggle made me reflect on the value of good leadership.

This article is a little different than most of what I did before, as it started without a clear destination. Bear with me.

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Every once in a while, I go through a period of days where writing feels natural, and I can create an article in one sitting and be pretty satisfied with it. Other times, like now, I can spend days or weeks without finishing a single article because nothing seems good enough. Not enough clarity, not enough insights, and not enough of anything that people may want to read.

When nothing we do seems reasonable enough, it’s easy to let self-doubt sink in, grow and control us, and the more we let it do it, the more difficult it is to snap out of it.

I have felt the same at several periods of my career as both Individual Contributor and Engineer Manager. Situations where I felt stuck and not good enough to do the job, and, crucially, not good enough to un-stuck myself.

I was very fortunate though to have had a good leader who understood exactly what I needed and supported me to help me move forward. What he understood was that I didn’t need to be told how to do my job or how to remove whatever it was that was getting me stuck. What I needed was to know that someone had my back, that someone would be there for me in case I wasn’t successful at unblocking myself.

In those situations, as a leader, it’s easy to try and fix it for them. It almost comes naturally. You see them struggling and, from the outside, you see a way out of that struggle and you want to help them. But more often than now, that’s not really the help they need. Personally, I find that kind of help temporary. As soon as the leader is no longer there to do it again, we fall back on it.

Good leaders understand that their value is not to give answers but to help us see our own value, sometimes even when we didn’t even know it was there.

That is one of the most important characteristics of good leaders. They give us confidence. They understand that we don’t need answers or hand-holding; we just need someone to remind us that we’re not alone and we’re capable and trusted.

The value of that is immense. If you were at some point in a similar situation, you’ll know I am not exaggerating.

That’s what I started writing, I think. Not to feel good about people reading what I’ve got to say (or at least, not entirely for that) but because if I can help someone not feel alone, if I can help someone feel understood and take something from me then I’ll feel I succeeded at passing on some of the support I’ve been given.