Engineering leaders often know what to do but fail to act because of motivation, confidence, prioritization, and organizational barriers; addressing these factors closes the knowing-doing gap and boosts team performance.
The knowing-doing gap is a concrete problem for engineering leaders: they understand leadership principles yet struggle to turn that knowledge into daily actions. The gap isn't abstract-it's driven by four recurring factors: personal motivation, confidence to act, the tendency to prioritize technical work over leadership tasks, and the broader organizational context that can either support or block leadership behavior.
Research by Ahmadi and Vogel interviewed 22 managers across industries and found that 43% cite lack of personal motivation, nearly 50% report low confidence in leadership situations, 55% admit leadership duties fall behind technical work, and over 60% point to organizational barriers such as missing senior support. These numbers show that the gap is not a rare glitch but a systemic issue that directly hampers team performance and innovation.
To narrow the gap, leaders should deliberately build confidence by practicing leadership skills in low-stakes scenarios, carve out regular time for leadership activities like one-on-ones and decision-making sessions, and continuously align those activities with the team's immediate needs. Creating a psychologically safe environment where managers can experiment with new behaviors further reinforces these habits, turning knowledge into measurable impact.
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