As of this morning, I have 165 published blog posts. But what you, the reader, don’t see is how many I have that I have NOT published. I have dozens of half-finished articles written, all of them unpublished for a variety of reasons.

Maybe I don’t feel like the article is presenting anything of real value. I don’t want to just whine and complain. Every article tries to convey some piece of advice. (It’s actually the same approach I take with coaching and leadership. You are allowed to come to me and whine and complain, but at some point we stop, take a breath, and say “Now what? What are we going to do about it?”)

Maybe I’m just not able to get my thoughts together in an interesting narrative flow. I don’t want to just publish a bunch of words; the article has to tell a mini-story and be coherent.

Maybe the topic doesn’t apply to technical leadership. I have thoughts on other topics, such as personal health, cooking, sports, entertainment. But I want this blog to be specifically about leadership in the tech industry.

But there’s one last category of unpublished blog posts, and that’s controversy.

I have topics or thoughts but I am hesitant to publish because its a divisive topic, or its a tough concept to say out loud. For example:

Sometimes you really do have to make a decision based on financials, not on “the best thing” for quality.

Sometimes you really do have to make a decision that will negatively impact other people’s careers.

Sometimes you have to surface uncomfortable truths about coworkers, executives, or the industry. And those are hard to talk about out loud.

I really do want to share these topics because they are vitally important for people trying to grow their careers. But these articles can be really hard to write, mostly because of fear I suppose. I want to be seen as someone who contributes positive value, and not someone who simply surfaces some negative situation without positive advice on how to move through it.

So keep that in mind with your own communications. Its ok to have thoughts and ideas in your head, but be careful about sharing them without having some sort of positive outlook or at least a constructive way forward.