On leading and leaning out
01 Apr 2021I’ve spent the last few months as the Tech Lead for my team. It’s been both a lot of fun and a lot of work. I’m handing over the reigns to another team member and wanted to take some time to reflect on the experience.
What I loved
One of the things that struck me about tech leading was how right it felt. The experience reminded me of those “find your purpose” diagrams:
It felt like I’d gotten closer to that sweet spot of passion, strength, and profession.
I loved thinking about a vision for the product, especially the infrastructure, and collaborating with the product and delivery managers on achieving that vision.
The weekly rhythm of planning meetings, roadmap updates, and idea sharing was exhilarating. I loved the challenge of breaking problems into smaller parts, making technical ideas or work accessible to a non-programming audience.
At first I put pressure on myself to know everything, but I let that go and soon found it liberating to say “I don’t know”.
As my self-confidence grew I began to recognise how valuable it is to have a team comprised of different talents and interests, and the benefits of complimentary skill sets. A team that achieves that kind of balance can do a lot and is a joy to work in.
What I found challenging
There were definitely a few challenges.
It was harder to get into the same state of flow I feel when I’m programming. There were meetings to attend, questions that popped up in Slack, emails that needed answering. It felt more difficult to settle or focus on one thing.
Another challenge was my self-doubt. I’m a bit of an experimenter, I learn from doing and find it harder to think five or ten steps ahead. Occasionally I’d second guess or doubt myself because I worried I was missing something, despite little evidence to support this.
Finally, I felt the impact of remote work more strongly as tech lead. I missed the in person elements of 1-1s. The opportunities for culture-work, in my opinion, are a bit easier when co-located.
I also missed programming after while.
What I’d do differently
I’d be more rigorous about carving out time to think about the team and really reflect. It felt a bit non-stop, jumping from one question, Slack message, email, issue to another one without a lot of time to pause and reflect.
Hearing from other Tech Leads where I work it sounds like carving this time out is really important. It can provide time to think about the team holistically.
I definitely benefited from creating space for reflection at my previous company where we had 20% time and a strong culture of using it.
A note on leaning out
For someone who enjoys leading and wants to continue down this path it feels a bit odd stepping back.
My primary reason for stepping back is to model “leaning out” or purposefully stepping away from leadership to show it’s possible to step away (for Hamilton fans this is what’s known as the “One last time” approach).
Folks are probably familiar with “Leaning in”, a concept introduced by Sheryl Sandberg in her book Lean In.
I’ve always been a bit sceptical of leaning in.
It puts the responsibility on marginalised individuals to tackle inequality instead of encouraging folks who aren’t marginalised or differently marginalised to address the cycle of marginalisation.
The tech lead role isn’t a promotion where I work, it’s an added layer of responsibility people volunteer for. You get to practice leadership, culture-building, product strategy, pastoral care, and working with stakeholders. It’s a lot of work.
It’s also a role that’s easy to get comfortable in. Most folks I’ve seen in the role stay there. This means it’s harder for other team members to get that leadership experience.
I stopped being a tech lead so in the future when there’s a new member of my team who wants to practice leadership, who may be historically marginalised in tech, they can step in to this role because there is a tradition of tech leads stepping back.