Social Capital
Your ability to get things done comes from trust and relationships, not just your job title.
TL;DR
- Motives matter: Social capital built inauthentically is manipulation. Under stress, your true character shows
- Social capital = trust + credibility + relationships - It's the currency that lets you influence without authority
- Build it through deposits: Ship reliably, help others, surface risks early, communicate clearly
- Spend it wisely: Urgent approvals, risky initiatives, asking for resources
- Track it weekly: Are people responding slower? Getting fewer invites? That's depletion
- Compounds over time: Junior → prove yourself. Mid → widen influence. Senior → cross-org alliances
Motives Matter: Social Capital vs Manipulation
Before you read this article, understand this: Social capital built inauthentically is manipulation.
These tactics only work if they're genuine personality traits and values. Under stress, your true character shows. If you're faking it, people will notice.
The Critical Difference
| Social Capital (Authentic) | Manipulation (Fake) |
|---|---|
| You help because you want to | You help to get something back |
| You're consistent under stress | You revert to real self under pressure |
| You care about others' success | You only care about your success |
| Built over years, part of who you are | Engineered tactics, feels performative |
| People trust you in crisis | People question your motives in crisis |
The Stress Test
Under pressure, who are you really?
Authentic:
- Project fails → You own your part, help the team recover
- Someone gets promoted instead of you → You're genuinely happy for them
- Person asks for help when you're busy → You actually want to help
Manipulative:
- Project fails → You blame others, protect yourself
- Someone gets promoted instead of you → You resent them, talk behind their back
- Person asks for help when you're busy → You help resentfully and keep score
If the tactics in this article don't match your actual values, don't use them. They'll backfire.
Who Should Read This
Read this if:
- You genuinely want to help others succeed
- You care about team outcomes, not just personal wins
- You follow through on commitments naturally
- You're comfortable celebrating others
Don't read this if:
- You're looking for tactics to manipulate people
- You only care about yourself
- You want shortcuts without doing the work
- You're transactional (I'll help if you help me)
The tactics work because they amplify authenticity, not create it.
If you're not naturally helpful, reliable, and collaborative, work on those traits first. This article won't help you fake it.
What Is Social Capital
Social capital is your ability to get things done through trust and relationships.
It's not:
- Your job title
- How many reports you have
- Your years of experience
It's:
- Whether people trust you to deliver
- Whether they believe what you say
- Whether they want to help you
Example:
- Engineer with low social capital: "We should migrate to Postgres." → Ignored
- Same engineer with high social capital: "We should migrate to Postgres. Here's data from 3 teams who did it." → Gets eng leadership meeting in 2 days
The difference isn't the idea. It's the capital.
The Three Pillars
Social capital has three components. You need all three.
1. Trust
Do what you say you'll do.
How to build trust:
- Ship on time. If you can't, say so early (not the day before)
- Surface risks before they become problems ("This might slip 2 days" beats silence)
- Own mistakes. "I missed this in review" beats "The test suite didn't catch it"
Example:
- Low trust: "I'll have it done Friday" → Ships Monday with bugs
- High trust: "I'll have it done Friday. If I hit blockers, I'll flag by Wednesday" → Ships Friday or flags Wednesday
2. Credibility
People believe you know what you're talking about.
How to build credibility:
- Pair execution with communication: Ship the feature + write the doc
- Learn continuously: "I researched how Stripe does this" beats "I think we should..."
- Be right more often than wrong: Track your predictions, improve your accuracy
Example:
- Low credibility: "This will scale fine" → Breaks at 10K users
- High credibility: "This will scale to 100K users based on load tests. Here's the data" → Scales as predicted
3. Relationships
People want to help you.
How to build relationships:
- Help without keeping score: Review code for other teams, answer questions in Slack
- Celebrate others: "Sarah's design made this 10x better" in standups
- Build cross-team rapport: Virtual coffee with that PM you've never met
Example:
- Weak relationships: Need urgent review → Crickets
- Strong relationships: Need urgent review → "On it. Will have it back in 30 min"
How to Build Social Capital
Micro-Habits
Small actions that build social capital. Pick what fits your style.
Share wins and credit others
- Post in Slack: "Shipped checkout v2. Conversion up 12%. Thanks to @sarah for designs"
- Credit others explicitly
- Builds relationships through recognition
Review code outside your team
- Find a PR from a team you don't work with
- Leave thoughtful feedback
- Builds trust across org
Virtual coffee with new people
- 15-minute call with someone you've never met
- Ask about their work, offer to help
- Builds relationships cross-functionally
Document what you learn
- Write what you learned this week
- Post to team wiki or Slack
- Builds credibility (shows continuous learning)
Thank people publicly
- Slack post: "Thanks to @mike for unblocking me on the API design"
- Public recognition strengthens relationships
- Be specific about what they did
Help without being asked
- Answer questions in team Slack even if not directed at you
- Offer to pair when you see someone stuck
- Builds reputation as helpful
Surface problems early
- "This might slip 2 days, here's why"
- Don't wait until deadline to flag issues
- Builds trust through transparency
Time per action: 5-10 minutes Frequency: Whatever you can sustain (daily, weekly, whatever works) Payoff: Compounds over 3-6 months
Career Stage Strategy
What to focus on based on your level:
Junior (IC0-IC1): Prove yourself
- Deposits: Ship reliably, ask good questions, own your mistakes
- Avoid: Overpromising, blaming others, going dark
- Goal: "I trust them to deliver what they say"
Mid-level (IC2-IC3): Widen influence
- Deposits: Help other teams, share knowledge, lead small projects
- Avoid: Hoarding information, staying in your bubble
- Goal: "They make the whole team better"
Senior (IC4): Build cross-org alliances
- Deposits: Solve other teams' problems, influence architecture, mentor broadly
- Avoid: Being a lone wolf, optimizing only your team
- Goal: "They make the whole org better"
Staff+ (IC5+): Multiply through others
- Deposits: Unblock multiple teams, set technical direction, grow future leaders
- Avoid: Doing IC work that doesn't scale
- Goal: "They enable 10 engineers to do their best work"
Manager: Amplify your team
- Deposits: Get resources for team, surface their wins, remove blockers
- Avoid: Taking credit, protecting territory
- Goal: "My team's success is my success"
How to Spend Social Capital
Social capital is a bank account. You deposit through trust, credibility, and relationships. You withdraw when you need something.
Good Withdrawals
1. Urgent approvals
- "I need design approval by EOD to ship tomorrow"
- Cost: Medium (asking people to drop everything)
- When it works: You've shipped reliably before
2. Risky initiatives
- "Let's migrate to Postgres. It'll take 6 weeks and might break things"
- Cost: High (asking for trust on uncertain bet)
- When it works: You've surfaced risks honestly and been right before
3. Extra resources
- "I need 2 more engineers to hit this deadline"
- Cost: High (asking for budget/headcount)
- When it works: You've proven ROI on previous asks
4. Forgiveness for mistakes
- "I broke prod. Here's what happened and how I'm fixing it"
- Cost: Medium (using trust you've built)
- When it works: You own it, fix it, and don't repeat it
Bad Withdrawals
Don't spend social capital on:
- ❌ Complaining without solutions
- ❌ Defending work that's clearly wrong
- ❌ Asking for favors you could solve yourself
- ❌ Politics or gossip
These withdrawals don't get you results. They just drain your account.
Warning Signs of Depletion
You're running low on social capital if:
1. Slower responses
- Your Slack messages used to get replies in 10 minutes
- Now they take 2+ hours
- Signal: People are deprioritizing you
2. Fewer invitations
- You used to be in architecture meetings
- Now you're finding out about decisions after they're made
- Signal: People don't value your input
3. More "let me think about it"
- People used to say yes to your asks quickly
- Now it's "I'll get back to you" (and they don't)
- Signal: They don't trust you'll deliver value
4. Help becomes transactional
- "I'll review your PR if you review mine"
- Used to be: "Happy to help"
- Signal: Relationship is weakening
What to do:
- Stop withdrawing. No more asks for 2-4 weeks
- Make deposits. Ship something great, help 5 people, document something useful
- Rebuild slowly. It takes 3 months to recover from depletion
Agency + Social Capital Matrix
Your impact comes from combining agency (ability to make things happen) with social capital (relationships to make it happen).
| Low Social Capital | High Social Capital | |
|---|---|---|
| High Agency | Lone Wolf - Great ideas, no support. Changes happen slowly or not at all. | Org-Changing Force - Great ideas + people want to help. Changes happen fast. |
| Low Agency | Stuck - No ideas, no relationships. Low impact. | Reliable Partner - No ideas, but people like working with you. Solid IC, limited ceiling. |
Where you want to be: High agency + high social capital = org-changing force
Example:
- Lone wolf: "We should rewrite the API" → Ignored because no allies
- Org-changing force: "We should rewrite the API. I talked to 3 teams, here's data, and I have buy-in from eng leadership" → Gets funded and staffed
How to move:
- Stuck → Reliable partner: Build relationships (help others, show up consistently)
- Lone wolf → Org-changing force: Build social capital (share your work, build allies)
- Reliable partner → Org-changing force: Build agency (propose ideas, take initiative)
Social Capital vs Favoritism
Social capital is earned. Favoritism is given.
| Social Capital | Favoritism |
|---|---|
| Earned through visible contributions | Given based on personal relationships |
| Benefits the team and org | Benefits individuals |
| Others can see why you have influence | Others question why you have influence |
| Creates mutual benefit | Creates resentment |
| Open to anyone who does the work | Limited to "in-group" |
Test: If you left tomorrow, would people miss your contributions or just your friendship?
Example:
- Social capital: "Alex always ships on time and helps other teams. They deserve that promotion"
- Favoritism: "Alex is my friend. They should get that promotion"
Red flags you're benefiting from favoritism, not social capital:
- People question why you have influence
- You get special treatment others don't
- Your failures are excused, others' aren't
- You're in meetings you don't contribute to
If you notice this: Earn your spot. Ship visibly, help broadly, communicate clearly.
Common Mistakes
Mistake 1: Building social capital with only your manager
Bad: Only your manager trusts you Good: 10+ people across 3 teams trust you
Why it matters: Your manager might leave. Your capital leaves with them.
Fix: Help other teams, build relationships cross-functionally.
Mistake 2: Withdrawing before depositing
Bad: First week on team → "We should rewrite everything" Good: First 3 months → Ship reliably, help others → Then propose big changes
Why it matters: You have no capital to spend yet.
Fix: Deposit for 3-6 months before making big asks.
Mistake 3: Ignoring the compound effect
Bad: "I'll build relationships when I need something" Good: "I'll build relationships now so I have capital when I need it"
Why it matters: Social capital takes 3-6 months to compound. You can't build it overnight.
Fix: Weekly micro-habits (see above). Do them every week.
Mistake 4: Optimizing for visibility over value
Bad: Posting in Slack constantly about minor wins Good: Ship meaningful work, then share it
Why it matters: Visibility without value is noise. Value without visibility is missed opportunity. You need both.
Fix: Ship first, share second. Not the other way around.
Action: Start Building Social Capital
Pick 2-3 micro-habits from the list above that feel natural to you. Do them consistently.
Examples to start with:
If you're good at shipping:
- Share what you shipped and credit others who helped
- Surface problems early instead of hiding them
If you're good at helping:
- Review code outside your team
- Answer questions in Slack proactively
If you're good at connecting:
- Schedule virtual coffees with new people
- Thank people publicly for helping you
If you're good at learning:
- Document what you learn and share it
- Write postmortems that teach others
Time investment: 5-10 minutes per action Frequency: Whatever you can sustain (daily, few times a week, weekly)
Expected result in 3 months:
- People respond to your messages faster
- You get invited to more meetings
- People say yes to your asks more often
That's social capital compounding.
Related
- Career Levels - What capabilities matter at each level
- Goal Setting - Set goals that transform you
Remember: Your job title gets you in the room. Your social capital gets things done.