Everything I want to remember about leading teams.

I have been leading teams even before I graduated college! Yeah, no kidding. 

I was about to go into my 2nd year when COVID-19 came, which is also when I had my accident. And, if you read my previous post, that is also when I got serious about what I wanted to do with my life. 

Well, I got so serious that I started leading teams while in my 3rd year itself! My father, being a victim of early-bossism himself, showed a little remorse and wanted me to work under guidance for a little more. But, being the kid that I still am, it was a dream too good to give up! 

It was not too long before I started to understand my father's feelings and why he felt it was too early for me. Leading a team means that you always have to be careful, presentable, available and most difficult of all, serious while making decisions. This does not end here, and in addition, you always have to "know" when your stakeholders have questions or when your team is struggling with some technology and even take ownership for mistakes that are not even yours! 

It is safe to say that delegation is an art! And apparently, 96% managers agree with this statement when they confess to not being able to find time for strategic tasks.

My problems did not end here; most of my team members were at least 3-4 years older than me professionally, and naturally, they showed resistance when a kid was chosen above them. To prove my worth, I have done a lot of research about leading teams; in fact, one of my research papers is about it. 

A Systematic Review on Extreme Programming

I quickly had to get better at building relationships and delivering features because the project's suffering could mean a lot of waiting before another opportunity was offered to me. 

Now that I have explained enough about my backstory, let me quickly get into why you are exactly here. Most of the points I will talk about here are too obvious and are usually ignored, but in my experience, these are the exact mistakes young leaders make to have enemies for life.

If you feel that you are not good at managing people, you are not alone. In fact, only 28% of managers feel that they are effective at leading others. 

While this is true, notice how they feel that they are not good at "leading"; therefore, it is also important to understand the subtle difference between management and leadership.

If I were to put it in very simple terms, a Leader sets the vision while a manager gets that vision executed. It is all about the intersection of coordination and efficiency. A good team leader can balance both. 

Some of the traits of very successful leaders I have met and worked with include emotional intelligence, trust, communication, power of influencing, respect for others, art of delegation, courage to take ownership and the will to learn more. 

It is very, very important to work on the way we perceive ourselves and present to others. We have to develop and maintain healthy relationships, stay calm,  always be ready to help and resolve conflicts, and engage in empathy. Also, we should be open to constructive criticism and quickly change our ways. The team should feel that their ideas are welcomed and taken into consideration. 

In my experience, to build a good relationship with your team, separate the person from the problem because the problem is actually what needs to be addressed. I know, it gets stressful when the deadline is near and the person you were counting on is not making much progress, but think about how you can fix the problem rather than wasting time getting angry. Trust me, I have seen teams putting in more effort when they see this behaviour.  

You have to be willing to forgive others else you will be alone in tough times.

Emotional Intelligence is defined as our capacity to be aware of, to control, and to express our emotions. - Daniel Goleman

I have learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. - Maya Angelou

To further strengthen your trust bond with the team, do not promise what you cannot deliver and give straight answers. You should include them in the decision-making process and seek continuous feedback. 

A very simple question that I like to ask is, "Are you enjoying what you are doing? What can I help with to make it more enjoyable?" If they are not, you should see if you can arrange for another task for them. 

For example, I always like to pick up the most boring or difficult tasks from the list. Also, I ensure I deliver more work than everyone on my team. Although I am not advocating for this behaviour but this helps me set an example before my team, and they always feel like everyone is in this together. When and wherever possible, I also take blames on behalf of my team.

If you cannot do this, please be a happy senior member of the team because being a team leader is demanding, and you have to accept what you will need to sacrifice. 

Young Leaders also need to understand that Productivity ≠ Completing tasks.

My boss always talks about how he wants all his employees to be lazy developers. He wants them to spend time thinking about a task through which, in return, reduces the long-term technical debt and need for refactoring, and over time, I have started to agree with him. 

If you want to delegate tasks nicely, be the laziest person and ask yourself this one simple question: "Who is the next best person to do this task after me?".  And of course, do not forget to consider what your team wants to work on and how much bandwidth they have. 

If you really want to see if your employees are being productive, connect with them on a personal level, overcome bias and withhold all judgements. The only thing you should be trying to do is listen closely and understand more about your team and their working style, especially if you have a team from different cultures. 

Everyone has a different upbringing, and each culture has a different approach -- Some prefer direct talks and others prefer indirect talks.

I, for example, can never wake up early to complete a task, and my manager has made peace with it even though there is a 2 hours and 30 minutes time difference between us. I usually wake up when he is wrapping up his day LOL (He starts his work at 6am).

Converse. Conversations, even the hard ones, are more honest, productive and respectful. Everyone feels a strong sense of belonging and ownership. If your team feels psychologically safe, they will take more risks and put in more effort.

At times, it can mean taking a stand and advocating for your team as well.

GROW Model to transfer skill

Goal

Reality

Options/Obstacles

Will/Way Forward

There is no growth if you control everything; you need to have confidence in your teammates and trust them. Young leaders often have the fear of being held accountable for their team's mistakes. My suggestion is that you should embrace it. Because there is no growth without failure.

For when you fail, it is very important to give proper feedback and be open to accepting feedback. 

Delegation isn’t just a necessity for freeing up your time. Done well, it can help you build your team’s capabilities and find the next you. 

Define the “why” behind the task, outline what success looks like, and clarify where the person has decision-making freedom.

The most effective leaders today aren’t the ones who do it all. They’re the ones who build others who can.

In fact, if your team can thrive without you micromanaging every outcome, that’s not a weakness — it’s a mark of strong leadership. 

Some questions I keep on asking myself, the team and leadership:

1. How can I help? 

2. What does a high-performing team mean to you?

3. What exactly are the qualities we hire?

4. Do we have the right resources to perform? 

Some things that I practice in my team:

1. Buddy system 

 Motivated by the concept of pair programming, each developer is assigned to a buddy. They brainstorm ideas and come up with solutions. They also have the freedom to figure out the dynamics for the code review system or when and how they would like to work together.

2. Compensatory Offs and Loan offs 

Whenever my team has to work overtime, they get an equal number of compensatory offs. Similarly, they can take an absence and then later complete their time at night or during the weekends.

3. Open communications 

My team can ping me anytime, and I will be available and ready to help. It can be about anything and everything they would like to discuss. 

Found a meme, share it with me! In fact, we host meme awards for all the dumb things we did all year. 

4. Calls over texts

Whenever my team has a doubt, I encourage them to jump on a call or huddle with me or some senior member as soon as possible; all issues and even conflicts should be resolved immediately. 

5. Regular anonymous feedback  

Just like one of the sprint ceremonies, every month or after every release, I create a Google Sheet where everyone can edit (I know Google Forms are a better choice, but you know about the whole being lazy story)

They open the sheet in their incognito modes and fill three sections -- MAD, SAD and GLAD.

What made them MAD?

What made them SAD?

What made them GLAD?

Also, during each release, they have the power to say no to any one specific task of their choice which the other developer will have to take over. I obviously have the conditional veto power LOL where I can prioritise a feature if it is due quite urgently.

6. Interim Intern Leaders

To help my team develop leadership skills and to learn the concept of ownership, every month one of the team member is responsible for managing the interns. They have to take care of everything. Even if the intern is not working directly under them, they stil have to ensure that everything is going on smoothly for that intern. 

At times when there is a lot of pressure and they cannot cope up, I take over to ease things out for them.

7. Project part ownership

Each of my team members is the owner of a specific part of the project. Which means that they have to handle everything, from documentation to cross-team communication to actually releasing the feature. 

This, however, does not mean that they work on only that specific piece and technology; they assist other owners also, but as mentees.

8. Skill Development Programme

Each developer has the freedom to choose a specific skill that they want to learn and I try to distribute tasks in a way that they are able to gain some exposure in that specific technology. I encourage my team to spend atleast 1 hour a day upskilling themselves so keep up with this rapidly changing field! 

9. GTD - Getting things done!

Getting Things Done (GTD) by David Allen (Too lazy to type hehe!)

There's a lot more to talk about, but I think that's all I would like to cover for this issue. If this sounded too good to be true, you have a lot of ground to cover! 

I hope I get better at expressing my thoughts and ideas more efficiently as a result of writing here. 

Thanks for bearing. I hope you lead with kindness and not with iron fists.

Anchit