How to Lead a Team with no Experience

Leaders can be everywhere. They can have the official title, but they don't necessarily need to. They can be aspiring leaders, but they don't have to. They can be mature, but they can also be young.

When people ask me how they lead a team with no experience, there are a few points that come to my mind.

Traits of leaders

The good thing is that you don't need an official title to lead. Yay! Nor do you need experience to do it. Yay again!

What will be helpful though is having certain traits. Having those traits will help you tremendously in situations that require a leader in the room.

• Have your eyes and ears open: The first step to leadership is not an active one, it is a passive one. This is about observing and listening. The more information you have, the better you can act.
• Communicate well and often: Although improving, communication is still an underrated skill among engineers. It requires to listen first. Then, to lead, others need to be able to understand you whether you speak or write.
• Be empathic: Understand the members of your group. Who are they? What motivates them? What happens in their private lives? Answering those and other questions will help you to build up context.
• Be vigilant: Prepare and be ready. Opportunities can be anywhere and most often they show when you expect it the least.
• Be outcome-oriented: When others are complaining or coming up with only problems, take a step back. First, gather all those comments as context. Then understand the actual problem you have and want to solve. Then think about how to approach that problem.

If you feel you haven't shown those traits so far don't worry. Some might come natural, others not. You can work on them one by one. Practice them.

To sum it up:

• Information is necessary to lead.
• Clear communication is necessary to lead.
• Context is necessary to lead.
• Finding the right moment is necessary to lead.
• Coming up with the right problem is necessary to lead.

How to lead with no experience

There are many ways to lead with no experience. Let's dive into a few of them.

Take ownership where no one else wants to

Do you remember that meeting where your manager asks the room who can take over this challenging issue? And everyone is looking down cause no one dares to touch that thing? This is the opportunity to show leadership. Take on that challenge.

The good part? This doesn't mean you need to come up with a solution on your own. More importantly, you will be the driver, the person who coordinates and steers until there is a solution.

Focus on making decisions during discussions

Ever experienced a gathering where the discussion went in circles over and over? Without the group coming to a conclusion or making a decision? This is time wasted for everyone.

I am of the opinion, that it is more helpful to take any meaningful decision than to take none. Rather move into a direction and learn it is the wrong one shortly after, instead of standing still.

If you experience such a situation think about what you can do to steer the group towards an outcome. What questions can you ask? What information is missing? Is there anyone else who needs to be consulted? Often the problem is missing information.

Be the role model

In my experience, the majority of members of a group want to have direction. They also want to have freedom to a varying degree.

There should be a frame which gives stability and in which they can safely move around. You can be the person that provides the frame. You can implicitly set norms by acting in a way that is beneficial to the whole group.

This requires that you understand the needs of the group as well as the direction it should move towards. Over time and when the norms you set are beneficial for others, your colleagues will slowly take over those behaviors.

Connect the dots

In an engineering team most developers focus on a narrow scope. That makes them experts in their specific niche. However, for a team to function it is necessary to understand the bigger picture.

This requires listening. Listen to managers, product owners, agile coaches, C-levels, etc. The more you listen, the more information you gather, the more you are able to connect the dots. This enables you to make more well-rounded decisions.

Conclusion

First things first. You don't need a formal title to lead a team. You also don't necessarily need experience to lead a team. This is good news!

What you need are certain traits that formal and informal leaders usually have. Those evolve around listening, observing, communicating, empathy, and finding the right outcomes.