Awesome engineering managers focus on building and empowering their teams to become awesome, rather than just managing tasks and projects. They use various habits, including smiling, telling their team they're awesome, taking time to get to know each team members, being present in the workplace, and delegating authority to their teams. These habits help create a positive and productive environment that fosters creativity, engagement, and results. By adopting these habits, engineers can transition into management roles and build high-performing teams that make other teams around them more awesome.