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It's telling that bad leaders I've worked with exhibit opposite traits from OP's list. Off the cuff, they've had tendencies to: - stubbornly devote majority of their time to coding, despite negative feedback of their leadership
- be consistently unaware of their calendar, to the point of developing a reputation for forgetting commitments
- insisting on being involved in every meeting, or being noticeably insecure when they weren't
- lack ability to execute on medium or long-term goals or visions
- being noticeably insecure when they were no longer the most experienced on the team
There's a time frame of forgiveness for some of that, but ultimately some degree of transition must occur for a leader to become effective. Their role, priority, and especially leverage, all change, and require corresponding changes in mindset and execution.Good leaders I've worked for didn't just understand that, they embraced it. They also had enough supporting experience, intuition, and team respect to execute well on it. They showed not just acceptance, but perhaps later even a level of mastery, in their new role. Which is all to say, one adapts and grows into an effective leader. And their leadership, in turn, grows into a distinguishing signal for team effectiveness, maybe even team happiness too. B/c of the teams I've worked for, I stuck w/good ones for longer than I would have expected largely due to positive environments fostered by the leaders at the time. I also left bad leaders earlier than I would have liked, despite having good relations w/teammates in general. |
The most common team expression of this is “You’re not close enough to it.” Or, “You don’t understand what it’s like.” As if “it” became different after stepping into leadership and the new leader underwent a mind wipe.
They didn’t forget what it’s like. They had derived intrinsic motivation from individual contribution, they understood it, they were great at it, and it still feels more valuable to them than the once removed levers of monkeying with ‘management’. This ‘bad leader’ who was part of the team, genuinely wants to be part of the team, but the team is rejecting their new role. So they stay operating in the trenches, at too low a level to influence the battle or the war.
On the contrary, unless the nature of tech engineering undergoes a shift, a “good leader” should not have to “be close to” the details of today’s particular glitch to remember what such glitches are like in general, and work to fix or remove that class of glitches now and for the team’s future.
Putting this in a metaphor that marries your bullets and this idea:
- Trust your team to roll the daily dice and advance their pieces around the Monopoly board
- Remain connected to whether the game is the same, mentor and advise strategies for wins, talk through whether they’re well set up to own the Orange monopolies…
- But instead of telling them how to play or — worse — grabbing the dice, work to rewrite the rules inside the Monopoly box lid to let their game be more effective and enable better outcomes