CTO PulseLeadershipHuman Resources

Stop Telling Yourself You're Bad at “People Stuff”

Tech Lead Journal
Tech Lead Journal•Feb 23, 2026

Why It Matters

Applying a systematic, psychology‑based framework enables tech leaders to reduce turnover, improve team performance, and scale leadership capacity without sacrificing technical excellence.

Key Takeaways

  • •Tech leads can apply systematic psychology to improve people management.
  • •Conflict avoidance hinders growth; confronting issues builds stronger teams.
  • •Assessing stability, variety, growth, status, connection, giving predicts turnover.
  • •Peer coaching groups provide practical frameworks for leadership development.
  • •Small iterative steps, like code, accelerate personal and team leadership growth.

Summary

The video features Martijn Versteeg, founder of Group Effort and an organizational‑psychology specialist, discussing why tech leads often claim they’re “bad at people stuff” and how that belief is a self‑fulfilling myth. He argues that engineers already excel at systematic thinking, and that same skill set can be applied to human behavior.

Versteeg outlines a simple six‑need model—certainty (stability), variety, growth, status, connection, and giving—as a predictor of employee satisfaction and turnover. He stresses that conflict avoidance is a common pitfall for new managers, and that the “bottleneck” mindset (“If I can do it, I should do it”) undermines team autonomy. Peer coaching groups of 300+ CTOs provide a “Stack Overflow of psychology” where leaders exchange concrete systems for conflict resolution and motivation.

A memorable quote from a former CTO illustrates the shift: “If only I can do it, I should not do it.” Versteeg also notes that humans prioritize pain avoidance over pleasure and short‑term rewards over long‑term goals, explaining why developers may shy away from difficult conversations or strategic planning.

For tech organizations, adopting these psychological systems means regular self‑assessment of the six needs, early detection of disengagement, and structured peer coaching. The result is higher retention, more empowered teams, and leaders who can iterate on their people skills with the same rigor they apply to code.

Original Description

Think you’re just “not a people person”? Most tech leaders quietly believe this about themselves, and it’s exactly what’s holding them back.
In this episode, Martijn Versteeg, founder of peer leadership community Group Effort and former CPTO with a background in organizational psychology, makes the case that it’s not: human behavior follows predictable patterns you can understand and work with, just like any system. The conversation covers a six-variable model for understanding what drives behavior and disengagement on your team, why popular personality tools like MBTI and DiSC often do more harm than good, and a clear structure for delivering bad news without the usual stress buildup. We also get into what it really takes to let go of hands-on coding when you move into leadership, why developing a product mindset matters even if product isn’t in your title, and the psychological risks of heavy AI use that most teams still aren’t thinking about.
Key topics discussed:
- The 6 human needs that predict human behavior
- Why MBTI and DiSC often do more harm than good
- How to stop avoiding difficult conversations
- Deliver bad news clearly using a 10-second rule
- Why becoming a bottleneck is a slow career killer
- Building a product mindset when you’re in tech
- The mental health risks of heavy AI use
- What peer groups give you that books can’t
Timestamps:
- (00:00:00) Trailer & Intro
- (00:03:06) Why Small Steps Matter More Than Career Turning Points
- (00:05:11) About Martijn Versteeg
- (00:07:01) How Can I Learn People Skills Systematically?
- (00:13:19) Six Human Needs That Predict Behavior
- (00:17:28) How Does It Compare to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs?
- (00:19:49) Why Are Personality Tests Like MBTI Unreliable?
- (00:23:20) How Do I Use Pain and Pleasure to Drive Growth?
- (00:28:30) How Do I Handle Conflict and Difficult Conversations?
- (00:32:47) A Model for Delivering Bad News in 10 Seconds
- (00:36:12) How Do I Transition from Tech Lead to Engineering Leader?
- (00:41:12) How Do I Let Go of Coding as a Leader?
- (00:42:49) The Vanilla Orchid Story: Why Leaders Must Let Go
- (00:46:55) How Can Engineers Develop a Product Mindset?
- (00:53:17) What Are the Hidden Risks of AI for Mental Health?
- (01:02:19) What Is the Value of Learning Through Podcast Conversations?
- (01:07:19) Why Consuming Knowledge Is Not the Same as Producing
- (01:09:06) 3 Tech Lead Wisdom
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Martijn Versteeg’s Bio
Martijn Versteeg is the founder of Group Effort, a Netherlands-based collective that empowers tech and product leaders across Europe through peer groups, offsites, and specialized training. As a key figure in the global product community, he is also an organizer of the Product Mastery Conference, where he helps curate insights for the next generation of product leaders.
Before founding Group Effort, Martijn built and successfully sold an EdTech IT platform and spent over five years as an Agile coach and Scrum Master. His unique perspective on leadership is rooted in high-performance athletics; at just 22 years old, he served as the National Rowing Coach for Singapore.
Today, Martijn is a vocal advocate for community-led learning. He frequently challenges leaders to move past the search for “golden nuggets” of wisdom and instead focus on the consistent, incremental iterations that solve the “hard people stuff” in scaling organizations.
Follow Martijn:
- LinkedIn – linkedin.com/in/versteeg
- Group Effort – groupeffort.nl
- Newsletter – groupeffort.nl/newsletter
- Free training on Massive Action-Taking for Product Leaders – groupeffort.nl/action
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