Recently I went to a talk by the wonderfully friendly Anne Thomas about learning leadership in a tech company. She interviewed a bunch of senior developers, tech leads, managers, and CIOs to learn from their stories and experiences. The talk was so compelling I compiled everything and shared with my co-workers and friends. Here’s a few key takeaways:
What you can do to lead wherever you are in your career:
Junior
- You can “manage up” (still bringing valid opinion and contribution to the table), but there’s a fine balance in not being too aggressive you have to lead without authority
Mid-Range (those tasking on more manager-esque tasks without the official title)
- The value is in you sharing the knowledge mentoring new folks coming in
Senior
- There will always meeting. At this point you will probably do more meetings than hands on work, but that doesn’t mean you should try to do everything all at once because that will ultimately leave you feeling burnt out
- You can either be very technical or not technical when getting a managerial role, regardless of which path you take, the common pattern is you “stepping up” (e.g. taking more responsibility, mentoring and training people, leading projects)
What is your definition of success?
Everyone has a different definition of success for leadership:
- Shipping a product on time
- Building a team that functions, is efficient, knows what they are doing
- Giving teams the capacity to lead themselves
- Foster an environment of trust and openness
Some common regrets:
- Pretending like moving to a manager role makes no difference in their relationships with coworkers (e.g. acts like moving up to a management position is not a big deal, but in reality there’s a difference)
- Thinking they could do it all (going in extra early or leaving late to do hands on work AND managing AND meetings, that’s just not sustainable)
- Being a dictator-style leader (thinking harsh authority and absolute commands will work, in truth it will just cause unhappiness and resistance from team members)
Some qualities that make leaders stand out:
- Empathy (absolutely most common traits that people list out, it’s important to be a great empathetic conversationalist)
- Being able to make decisions in the face of uncertainty
- Comfortable with difficult conversations (there is value to everyone involved in getting feedback, positive or negative)
- Know that you don’t know. It’s ok to note know everything, you don’t need to know all the answers to the new tech stack, or the fine grain details of the code. But you absolutely should know who in your team is best for the task.
- Aware that your decisions and choices are amplified
- Resilience, drive, ambition, excellence, fun
Resources
- Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High (this is one I also personally recommend because this book has been life changing for me, both professionally and personally)
- The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo
- The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier
- Radical Candor by Kim Scott
- How F*cked up is your Management? by Jonathan Nightingale and Melissa Martingale
- Resilient Management by Lara Hogan
- Dare to Lead by Brene Brown
- Marcus Blankerhsip blog
- Becoming a Technical Leader by Gerald M. Weinberg
- Managing Humans by Michael Lopp
- Leaders Eat Less by Simon Sinek
- Managing Up podcast
- Clearbit Manager’s Handbook
- It doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work by Jason Friend and David Heinemeier Hansson