Effective Leadership in Tech Teams

All my life, I have been under someone who has given me directions on what, how, when, and why to do something. Being a leader or manager has to be one of the most fascinating aspects of life. You can't lead properly if you haven't been in a position of being led by someone.

I love history – over the years, I have learned a lot about leadership from conquerors like Suleiman the Magnificent, King Louis XI, Queen Isabella of Castile and many more. These people had their faults and weaknesses, but their leadership lessons endure.

Some people are born natural leaders, some are not. Even when you have leadership as an inborn talent, you have to express it, and with time you gain experience. It is experience that will set you apart from other leaders.

Horizontal vs Vertical Leadership

Experience should not only be with large-scale teams. The fundamentals of leadership are the same whether a team is small or big. What's different is the scalability of how you can lead and delegate. Think of it as an auto-scalable application – if more traffic comes your way, you can scale horizontally or vertically.

Vertical Scaling involves you as a manager accumulating more power and authority as you try to exert force on your team. That is bad leadership. You should never try to gain control by using force on your team. The moment you start doing that, you are losing the battle.

Horizontal Leadership is when you as a leader give people in your team the power to believe they are leaders by themselves. Giving people ownership of something in the team is what good leadership looks like. You have to make sure that people feel needed, appreciated, and that they can contribute something to the team.

1. Be a Great Listener

Often, bad leadership stems from poor listening skills. If you can't listen to your team members, it will be hard for you to make good judgments. Sure, you can talk and advise, but you have to make sure you are a great listener first.

2. Be a Friend

When you are a friend to someone beyond work, they will trust you and earn your respect. Don't be fake though. When I was a college lecturer, one of the methods I used to improve my students' grades was to make sure I was friends with them first before being their teacher. Fear drives people away. As a friend to my students, I learned that when we became close, they could open up about the problems affecting their performance.

3. Be Transparent

This is a hard one. One of my models in life: if I know I'm going to lie, I don't say anything at all. With time, I have learned that lying causes more harm. It is hard to tell the most uncomfortable truth to someone who is not a friend – this is why this point builds on being a friend first.

4. Treat All Equally – No Nepotism

In any team regardless of many factors, there will be different attributes and personalities. Just because you resonate more with one trait should never mean the rest are bad. Good leaders have always treated people equally and fairly. Let's not start picking sides – if we do that, we divide the team.

5. Be a Learner

No matter what position you are in, remember you are a student of life. It's your chance as a leader to have an open mind to learn new things from your teammates. You should never try to underestimate anyone on the team. You should be the one leading the learning sessions.

Almost all the times that Genghis Khan conquered land, he would tell his soldiers to share the land. The Great Khan understood that his soldiers needed to feel appreciated. Instead of accumulating land ownership himself, he decided that his soldiers needed to be compensated well. It's what a great manager should do – make sure everyone on the team is appreciated and taken care of.

This post was originally published on Medium.