Why Hard Skills Bring You Here but Won't Get You There

I joined a Basketball team when I was 16.

I wasn't the tallest. I wasn't the most athletic. I wasn't the one who scored the most.

I was someone who did not complain, who worked through tactical training sessions as well as strenuous games. I always showed up while others indulged in their vice. During a game, I rather passed the ball to someone who had a better position to score instead of challenging my own luck. I was the one who ran back to defend our hoop when a team member messed up the offense.

Still, the coach of the team made me the team captain.

• Because I was reliable.
• Because I saw more value in helping to achieve the greater good than to look great to the audience.
• Because I tried to work with our coach together to move our team forward.
• Because I did not have strong opinions that I wanted to push through without thinking of consequences.

What does this story tell us?

My experience is that hard skills can help you become a Tech Lead. However, they won't help you be successful in the long run.

If you keep focusing on your technical expertise only you will miss out on several important dimensions to team success:

• Team spirit
• Guidance and vision
• The birds eye view of the project
• Bringing different threads together to form a unified whole
• Mentoring and sponsoring
• Be an ally to your manager

You will also miss out on a form of gratification that you have never felt before:

• Team members take on ownership.
• Team members growing and become more mature.
• Team members taking over tasks from you so that you can focus on bigger things.
• Team members trusting you and following you.
• Team members looking up to you for support and certainty.

It depends on you

As a Tech Lead, you can go the easy route and continue as you have done before.

• Concentrate on writing code (because this is what you know best).
• Taking the most interesting work for yourself (because now you have the official power to do so).
• Understand praise for your team or other team members as praise for yourself.
• Avoid the interpersonal challenges in the team (this is what your manager should deal with).
• Avoid talking to people about what is on their mind.
• Avoid making work life better for others (it is enough when things develop positively for you).
• Use a "simple" carrot and stick approach to let people do what you want.

Or you can build up a sustainable career as a leader in which:

• You show interest in what your team members think.
• You think about ways to make working together better for everyone, not just for you.
• You show up reliably and follow up, independent of how ugly the problem is.
• You follow the rules that you together with the team agreed upon.
• You suggest the right kind of work for the right person on your team.
• You support team members when they are stuck.
• You openly mention the great work a person did and foster a culture of cheering each other up.

Conclusion

Being a leader of any kind is never easy. The way your tribe, the people you work with closely, perceive you will change. From now on, it might be harder to build up those close cooperative relationships with your team mates that you could built before. The problems you work on will change.

On the other hand, you will gain a new perspective, new satisfaction, make new connections and get to know the same people you knew before in a different light.

Do you have the opportunity to become a Tech Lead but are struggling with the changes that might entail? Are you already a Tech Lead but feel stuck?

Feel free to reach out and let's find a way that works for you!