
Ask HN: How can I be a better team lead? (corporate) - m88m
After spending more than 10 years as Software Developer I was recently promoted to lead my own team (5 devs, 3 remote) working on a complex web application.
We are doing daily syncs (Slack), but I still get blindsided with unknowns, bottlenecks and so on. Drive our throughput to the ground, and my weeklies with the boss to an unpleasant experience.<p>I’m in a in a conflict of measuring my people and understand what they do and if they do the right things to being too bossy and nudge them too much, which may hurt their productivity and retention.<p>- Do you measure your people and if so how?<p>- Do you have any kind of telltale to the health of the team&#x2F;developer?<p>- Some kind of crystal ball that help you manage your team?<p>Any advice is appreciated.
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kejaed
Were you a team member on this team before you were promoted to lead? If so,
it's going to be a tough road ahead because you are going from a peer / co-
worker relationship to a manager & direct report relationship. These are tough
transitions to make, and a reason the military will often transfer someone who
is newly put into a leadership position.

Have you started to train yourself as a lead / manager? A couple of resources
I've found useful in the switch have been Manager Tools [0] (book, site, and
podcast) as well as The Manager's Path [1].

While his shtick can be a bit thick at times, I enjoyed Extreme Ownership by
Willink [2], if only because it codified a lot of thoughts I've had for a long
time. I've worked with a lot of military and defence so the stories and life
views he teaches through didn't throw me, but I know it does for some people
so YMMV.

I have found that the Manager's Tools suggestion that the single best thing
you can do is have weekly one-on-ones with your team to be true. It can be
tough, especially if you still have a lot of your IC responsibilities
alongside your new team lead roles, but it is truly remarkable how much more
insight you can get into what your team is thinking from holding these
sessions. This is they crystal ball you are looking for. And remember, the
weeklies are about your team members, not about you (refer to manager tools).

[0] [https://www.manager-tools.com/products/effective-manager-
boo...](https://www.manager-tools.com/products/effective-manager-book)

[1] [https://www.amazon.ca/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-
Growt...](https://www.amazon.ca/Managers-Path-Leaders-Navigating-
Growth/dp/1491973897)

[2] [https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-
SEALs/dp/12...](https://www.amazon.ca/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-
SEALs/dp/1250067057)

~~~
anotheryou
+1 for [0] and [1]. Exactly what I settled on when jumping in to these roles
and both great for giving you enough comfort to start acting.

Now I have to have a look at [2] and see if it's as good, too :)

I also struggle with being the product manager at the same time and also
stretching beyond my team in that role, even if in my team it's just ~5
directs for now.

~~~
anotheryou
found a good summary for [2], guess that will do for me:
[https://thepowermoves.com/extreme-
ownership/](https://thepowermoves.com/extreme-ownership/)

------
hitsurume
Something not commonly talked about is knowing how to respect the IC's that a
lead/manager will manage. All the bad leads/managers i've had, had always been
people who would jump to please their bosses and take on horrible deadlines or
scopes that put huge amounts of stress on the people they managed. This lack
of awareness to a balance in productivity for personal gain is very apparent
to your employees and they will lash out by slacking, leaving the company, or
sabotaging the project just to get one over the lead/manager. The best
managers i've had will push back against their bosses and tell them what's
realistically possible to do because they're aware of their employees stengths
and weaknesses, knows that en employee just had a personal tragedy and won't
be able to be working at 100% for the forceeable future, etc etc. lastly i've
seen companies try measuring things like lines of code committed per day, and
that never ever works out the way upper management thinks.

------
Jugurtha
> _I’m in a in a conflict of measuring my people and understand what they do
> and if they do the right things to being too bossy and nudge them too much,
> which may hurt their productivity and retention._

Your approach will probably be tailored to every individual's characteristics.
Some are laser-focused. Some know how to prioritize. Some will need your
involvement to move forward, others will move forward inspite of you. Some get
tired fast, others have a lot of stamina. Some can handle complexity, some
understand business, some this and some that.

Clear communication is important. Your thoughts are only obvious to you, and
they make sense mostly in your head. Writing them down exposes holes.
Repeating sucks, but it's worthwhile when you say something and someone says:
"You know... you must have said this a hundred times, but it's only now that
it clicked.".

The major focus in my opinion ought to be the product, the roadmap, on the
clarity of the objectives and making sure everyone understands what you're
building and why and why you're _not_ building and why, and what you will
build but not now. When this is taken care of, people will get to work and
give it a shot. If you want to measure something, introduce quantities for the
phenomena that matter most, the output of the system: user satisfaction,
experience, ease of use, stability, and work your way back.

Low tech things work: having a Slack workspace for users where all your team
answers questions and supports users pretty much guides you. You prioritize
the issues faster according to what's causing the most pain. When almost every
message is on problem X, you have your work cut out for you. Suddenly you
realise some of your users have low bandwidth and are the application doesn't
even load. Who would have known? It also puts pressure on the team when real
people are having problems, and it's also satisfying.

I've written a few replies to similar topics.

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808439](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21808439)

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21598632](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21598632)

[2]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21614372](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21614372)

------
op03
Be aware there are different styles -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Management_style)

Find one that matches your personality
[[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_NEO_Personality_Invent...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revised_NEO_Personality_Inventory#Personality_dimensions)].

Don't try to do things because its effective for some other manager, whose
personality is different from yours.

Find managers/mentors within the org who share your personality traits/values
and are on career trajectories you want to follow and talk to them regularly
about your issues.

