Day 23: 7 Things I Wish I Knew 10 Years Ago About Leading Teams

If I could go back in time, these are the 7 things I wish I knew about leading teams and growing organisations.

(It would have saved me much wasted time and effort.)

1. Culture comes first

You’ll only create a longstanding organisation through a strong culture.

Culture spreads throughout different levels of leadership, all the way to the way developers work with each other.

2. You don’t need to know everything

Contrary to what you might think when reading job descriptions, you won’t need to lead teams, solve every technical problem and also stop crime in Gotham.

You work with brilliant people for a reason. Trust and learn from them.

3. Always have priorities set

If nothing else, have a clear set of priorities set for your team.

Ask your manager. It will help them go through uncertain times.

4. Document decisions

There’s nothing worse than trying to understand why a decision was made only to find that you have no explanation written down.

Whenever you need to make a decision, use a decision log and write down the alternatives, the good and bad of each one and why you decided to go down a specific path.

5. Details matter

I don’t know about you but my OCD gets triggered when I see a presentation with things misaligned, or text boxes out of place. It screams a lack of caring.

Make sure you polish your presentations to the point your peers do not doubt that you’ll present

6. Everyone is struggling

Get this through your head. You are struggling but so are your peers. If your team is struggling with their roadmap, you can bet others are too.

Remember to be empathic before going into a rant about how other teams don’t care.

7. You get what you give

At the end of the day, I believe that reputation is everything.

If your teams know that you’ll go through hell for them, they will also go the extra mile for you.

You can’t ask for something you’re not willing to give.