What If Your Chaos Is Actually Your Superpower?

My manager told me I should take more time with queries before responding.

Same day, I fired off three messages in rapid succession, then immediately found the answer myself by actually reading the problem.

Classic.

I've always been like this. Thoughts go straight from my brain to Slack. No filter. No pause. Just automagic - probably some form of what nowadays would be called ADHD, just an undiagnosed 90's kid thing.

And honestly? It makes me feel embarrassed. Frustrated. Annoying.

I see other engineering managers around me being so thoughtful. So measured. They take their time. They read things properly before responding. They don't spam the channel with half-baked thoughts.

And I'm over here like a pinball machine, bouncing from thought to thought, question to question, sending messages before I've even finished thinking them through.

Am I doing this right? I didn't study for this. Maybe I'm just wrong about everything.

Why can't I just slow down and read properly first?

The Comparison Trap

Here's what messes with my head: I see managers who seem so calm and calculated. They think before they speak. They don't blurt out every question that pops into their brain.

And I'm... not that.

I'm the person who sends a message asking for help, then solves it myself thirty seconds later because I actually looked at the error message. I'm the person who jumps into a thread with an idea that's only half-formed. I'm the person who prototypes something messy just to show what I'm thinking.

It feels chaotic. Like I'm doing it wrong.

Everyone else has their shit together, and I'm just... winging it at high speed.

I never had proper EM training. I was kind of just thrown in the deep end. My manager helps me a lot, but there's no manual for this. There's no "here's how to be a good EM" course that covers "what to do when your brain moves faster than your typing."

So I keep thinking: Maybe I need to be more like them. More thoughtful. More measured. More... calm.

The Conversation That Changed Everything

I was venting about this to a friend recently. The usual spiral: I'm too chaotic, I send too many messages, I don't think before I act, everyone else is better at this than me.

They let me ramble. Then they said something that stopped me cold:

"But isn't that just a superpower you can leverage for good things?"

Wait. What?

I sat with that for a minute. A superpower? My chaos?

And then I started thinking about what it actually does for me.

When Fast Is Actually Better

When there's an urgent issue, I'm the first one to jump on it. Not because I'm trying to be a hero, but because my brain is already moving. I'm already poking at the problem, already asking questions, already trying things.

I don't need to sit and plan my approach. I just start.

When I want to show the team what I'm thinking, I don't write a spec. I prototype it. Messy, rough, "this is 30% of the idea but you can see where I'm going with it." It saves time. It gets us aligned faster.

When we're stuck in a conversation, I'm the one throwing out ideas. Not all of them are good. Some of them are terrible. But they move the conversation forward.

That rapid-fire, high-energy, thoughts-to-messages-instantly thing? It's not always a bug. Sometimes it's the feature.

What I'm Actually Changing

I'm not trying to stop being high-energy. That's like asking a river to stop flowing. It's just how I'm wired.

But I am adding some structure around it.

Before I hit send, I try to pause for a second. Just a second. Ask myself: Can I solve this myself first? Am I asking a question I could answer by just reading the thing I'm responding to?

In sync calls, I try not to answer first anymore. I give others a chance to jump in. Unless nobody goes, then yeah, I'll fill the space. But I'm getting better at creating room for other voices.

I'm also doing this blog. Researching other EMs. Learning how different people approach this job. Not to copy them, but to understand that there are a hundred different ways to do this right.

And I'm finding my own style within that.

The Imposter Syndrome Never Goes Away

I still have that voice in my head. The one that says everyone who does things differently must know better.

I see a manager who's calm and thoughtful and I think: That's the right way. I'm doing it wrong.

But I'm learning to question that voice.

Maybe they're just different. Maybe their style works for them, and my style works for me.

Maybe the chaos isn't a problem to fix. Maybe it's just... how I operate.

And maybe that's okay.

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

If you're an EM who feels too chaotic, too fast, too all-over-the-place - here's what I wish someone had told me earlier:

Your messy internal experience doesn't mean you're failing. It just means you're wired differently.

The fact that you move fast, iterate publicly, and jump on problems immediately? That's not a weakness. That's a strength. It just needs the right context.

Stop trying to be the calm, measured manager if that's not who you are. Find the version of leadership that fits how your brain actually works.

Add structure where it helps. But don't try to rewire yourself completely.

You don't need to slow down to be good at this. You just need to be intentional about when and how you move fast.

The Shift

I'm not trying to become someone else anymore.

I'm a high-energy, rapid-iteration problem solver. I thrive under pressure. I prototype quickly. I move fast.

That's not chaos. That's just my operating system.

And instead of fighting it, I'm learning to work with it.

Different leadership styles aren't better or worse. They're just different.

The work is to find yours and own it.

Let's connect on LinkedIn—I'm still figuring this stuff out and would love to hear how you've found your own style.