Many engineering managers are unaware that one of the main traits of being a manager is navigating the ultra-thin line between being inspiring and being unforgivably cringeworthy. What is that managerial cringe after all, and why does it hit so hard? Managerial cringe hits you when the fake, artificial part of a message from a higher-up rings louder than what’s being said. It can be an artificially epic quote or the excessive use of pseudo-heroic figures of speech, including lions, wolves, and warriors. A manufactured message thrown in Slack to say something the world would have totally survived from if gone unsaid. It can be a quote from Sun Tzu, or a meme used the wrong way. In the engineering workplace, cringe comes in many different forms and flavors.