i always believed that a good manager or lead should have a balanced technical and functional skills. i have had my share of being under people who were technically einsteins but managerial archies (the comics! have had the chance to read it in my last travel).
toni bower’s of techrepublic wrote these 19 mistakes a tech lead makes,
-
assuming the team serves you
-
isolating yourself from the team
-
employing hokey motivation techniques
-
not providing technical direction and context
-
fulfilling your own needs via the team
-
focusing on your individual contribution
-
trying to be technically omniscient
-
failing to delegate effectively
-
being ignorant of your own shortcomings
-
failing to represent the best interests of your team
-
failing to anticipate
-
repeat mistakes others have already made
-
using the project to pursue your own technical interests
-
not maintaining technical involvement
-
playing the game rather than focusing on the target
-
avoiding conflict
-
putting the project before the people
-
expecting everyone to think and act like you
-
failing to demonstrate compassion
reading through it made me reminesce when i was featured in my last company’s newsletter where i wrote there how i was as a lead. the three things that i thought of was first – for me to know where i came from (keeps me levelled). second, we are still doing business so its important to know how to meet our company/project’s goals and balance it with how to motivate my team to achieve these goals. lastly, its to know that i work with people so molding a good relationship with my team is a key which is unfortunately sometimes being neglected.
set it good 