How to spot and step into tech leadership moments (No. 82)
We might be breaking new ground here tech leads! Leadership may only be stringing together lots of tech leadership moments. Let's explore.
Hey tech leads-
You made it to Friday!
Today, we’re going to talk about tech leadership moments. I don’t hear others raise this topic, but if you’ve read other issues or listened to my recordings, you know that I mention these things called “leadership moments” often. I haven’t told you much about what they mean, however.
Today, I explain
what they are,
how to spot them, and
how to step into them.
This was personally fun to explore because I’ve intuited my way through these moments for the past few years, and it’s worked well for me. Now I offer you something to operationalize.
To be honest, however, I’m a little disappointed with myself for holding this topic until the end of the week because I might be breaking new ground, and I hate for you to miss it. I don’t know if I’ve read anything like what I’m about to share with you. Read on and let me know if you agree.
Why we need to break “tech leadership” into moments
I talk about “leadership moments” because, honestly, most of us don’t run around leading all day long. I imagine Satya Nadella does, but you don’t. I don’t either. You spend a lot of your day working with the code. Even engineering managers spend a lot of time as individual contributors, still working on code as well as these terrible things called spreadsheets. You could be spending 90% of your day deep in the code.
Opportunities to lead only come up a few times during a week for most of us.
Don’t miss this point. You aren’t leading just because you have the word “lead” in your job description. You aren’t leading simply because someone converted your engineering manager title to “leader.” (I ranted on Twitter on this point recently.) Similarly, you aren’t leading just because you draw a gorgeous new architecture on a whiteboard before the team shows up, conjure up a new automated Trello process, or even call a meeting.
Instead, you lead (verb) when you spot and step into a leadership moment. “Being a leader” is a conclusion that comes only from stringing a lot of these moments together. (It’s also a title only your followers get to bestow on you, but that’s a topic for a different letter.)
The more of these opportunities you exploit, the more of a leader you become. The contrast is true as well when you let too many of them slip by.
Leadership moments are an important thing to seek because they emphasize that the word “lead” is best used as a verb instead of a noun.
What is a leadership moment?
I gave you some ideas of what leadership is not. Here, I’ll give you some ideas of what tech leadership moments are and how you can spot them. You can’t step into a leadership moment if you can’t spot it in the first place, so let’s start here.
A leadership moment is any moment where you know someone, or a group of people, would benefit from following your lead. You might need to read that sentence a few times. I crafted it carefully, and it’s tightly packed.
An example might help. Let’s say you’re in a conference room with your engineering manager, Anil, someone from the business, Linda, and a few engineers. You’re the tech lead. Linda is asking for a bunch of new features to the codebase you own, and Anil is generally agreeing to what she wants and the way she proposes because he doesn’t really understand the codebase. Anil isn’t asking for your input, which you dismiss as him knowing you’re a newly minted tech lead. (But may be because he doesn’t truly see you as a leader yet, read on.)
You’ve been deep in the code and architecture, and you know there are problems with what Linda proposes and what Anil is agreeing to, and anyway, you have a better path forward. You feel the urge to speak up.
You might be tempted to dismiss my example as simply as a moment to correct some misunderstandings in the conversation. That might be true if you were an individual contributor, but you’re in a quasi-leadership role now. If you only make a correction, they may never benefit from your better way, which will only happen if they follow your better path. This is the moment to create followership. THIS is a leadership moment.
If you look back, you can probably think of quite a few moments like this that you missed. I know I sure can. That feeling like, “oh, snap, I should have said X in that moment,” is one indicator that you blew it.
By the way, go back and look at my definition again to notice something important: the emphasis is on your would-be followers and how they benefit. It’s NOT about your ego. If you want to seize a leadership moment because you need a blast of serotonin, then you’re reading the wrong email. Find another drug dealer; I’m not your guy.
How to step into a leadership moment
You mission starts with spotting a lot more of these moments. The moments are usually fleeting, however, so stepping into them is critical if you want to up your tech leadership impact.
Returning to our prior example of you, Anil, and Linda, one choice you might make is to, LATER, follow up with Anil and explain why he was wrong and what the better approach is. Unfortunately, if you wait for a later moment, Anil and Linda might commit to a course of action and dates in the meeting that currently happening. The moment to lead and put the team on a better path may, and likely will, disappear forever.
Pardon the interruption :-)
Do you know of anyone who would benefit from this list? I’m looking to have a broader impact to make great tech leads. Please consider sharing with anyone you think may benefit!
How do you step into that moment? First of all, assuming you spot the opportunity at all (and many don’t), most of us have a certain about of hesitation and anxiety about asking people to follow us, especially when we’re just getting used to the tech lead role. So let me give you some tips or ideas about how you can step in.
First, you just need some basic skills and have confidence in those skills. Returning to the conference room example, you need to be able to be comfortable with a bit of public speaking, know how to explain your position, and have the skills to handle any push back and direct dialog on your points. Having mastery of the Four Core will also help, because it helps you understand that this one conversation is just one data point in a series of things you’ll do to make an impact.
Second, check your intentions. If your intention is good, in the sense that you honestly believe your course is the correct one and that you need to step into this moment to get them on the right track, then it will be easier. If your intention is, however, not to screw up or not look like an idiot or not make a mistake, then that’s strongly going to inhibit you from stepping in.
The core idea here is that your intention is for people to follow your lead because it’s good, and you intend only good things.
Third, and I think this is the most important point, is to make a commitment to being a great tech lead. Great tech leads have followers. They get followers by stepping into leadership moments.
Here’s an example of what I mean by commitment: this week I was fortunate to be able take my daughter and her friend surfing before school and the work day started. My daughter just likes to go, and it breaks up the week. She dabbles with surfing. Her friend, on the other hand, doesn’t dabble; she’s dead set on being a professional surfer when she grows up.
It’s February in LA so at first light the sand is still cold from the night before, and the Pacific is quite cool this time of year, even with a wetsuit. My daughter hesitated for a long time, slowly working her way into the waves, and maybe caught one or two. Her friend dove right in and started catching them on her first paddle out.
I tell you this because my kid’s friend is committed. She’s going to make the most of the trip, no matter what the surf brings. If you’re committed, then you do what it takes.
So, it is with you. If you commit to being a great tech lead, then you’re going to step into more leadership moments, even if you have some hesitations or hang ups along the way. And, by the way, if you’re committed, you’re going to SPOT a lot more moments too.
Have a great weekend tech leads! You earned it.
-michael
Thanks for reading!
The Tech Lead Coaching email list and podcast are written and recorded by Michael Rice to bring more clarity, certainty, and confidence to my tech leads.
Tips? Have something you’d like me to cover or someone you want to me talk about? Drop me an email to me@michaelrice.com. Hope you will. 🤞
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