As a leader you determine the excellence and attitude of your team. My time in the Army exposed me to Leadership by Example and how important it is to be involved in all facets whether that's leading, talking, listening, working, observing, etc. When you lead by example, you set the standard and define the expectations of what's possible.
Actions will always speak louder than words. When you do work and make things happen it inspires others to think, "Hey, wait a minute, if they can do this, I can do this". Leading by example you create a positive environment and ultimately forge a path for others to see what's possible. By doing this you make it easy for others to follow you on your journey toward excellence.
According to the Army's leadership doctrinal manual, Field Manual 6-22 (yes, my reference might be old), Army leadership is:
"the process of influencing people by providing purpose, direction, and motivation while operating to accomplish the mission and improve the organization."
To me, Leadership is:
- Being an example for others to follow
- Setting standards
- Pushing your team to accomplish more than they think is possible
- Taking care of your team
If you do these things, you'll improve your team and over time you'll greatly improve your group, business unit or company. Before we get into specifics, a few examples to show you what leadership isn't. Micromanaging people until they do what you want them to do (is not leadership). Nor is sending an e-mail marked as high importance or forwarding on work (or an email) with no additional context. Too busy to attend team stand ups or a demo then you ask for someone to catch you up; you guessed it, NOT leadership. So then how do you give your team purpose, direction and motivation monthly, weekly or daily?
Recognize the value from each team member.
"Who doesn't want to know that we notice them and value them? And who might respond to us better when they feel that they matter? It probably cannot be overstated – it matters...that people matter."
- Steve Goodier
First, please recognize every individual is different and thus has different strengths and weaknesses they bring to the team. If you don't know your team or haven't really listened to them, read my post about, joining a development team as a leader. Once you have a basic understanding of each person on the team, you should have an initial understanding of what your team members want and what motivates them.
Understand, this isn't a one time process either, each person is motivated by different things. We each have unique aspirations, dreams and beliefs that motivate us. However, these things shift over time; what you wanted most in your 20's is different than what you wanted most in your 30's and again different in your 40's, etc. So you need to listen and engage with your team on a regular basis. If you're in the same office have lunch 1 day or take a walk and talk. Have regular 1 on 1s. If your team is remote, do video calls or build in quarterly or annual visits. IM (on Teams or Slack), or email to make sure everything is ok with their home/personal lives. Add a bit of personal concern into discussions. Often we are "too business" (not to say we shouldn't remain professional) and not worried about the actual person and their feelings. Strive for empathy among your team.
After you've built a relationship with each person, try to understand where they want to take their current role and career. What's their ambition with their life and career? This is almost as important as understanding their current skills and how they presently operate within the team. I've had DevOps folks with 15+ years of experience tell me they want to learn frontend development. On the flip side, I've had die hard frontend developers privately disclose to me they want to learn about DevOps. By paying attention to your team and their career desires you’ll be able to set up your team for success, while also motivating them to work harder and faster. You get all this, and if you are clever about it, you can cross-train your team to build additional resilience and a stronger team overall.
Communicate goals and expectations to the team
"Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be."
- Stephen R. Covey
The direction, priorities and goals of the team should be clear to everyone on the team at all times. No one should ever ask what should they be working on, what's their top priority, what's the focus of the team this sprint or what's important to work on right now. You must define long term goals for the team and each individual and those should always guide their weekly and monthly actions. Then you break those long term / large goals up into smaller milestones for the team and individual members to execute; this should guide their daily and weekly objectives. Your 1 on 1's, team meetings and individual meetings serve as check-ins on progress for your team goals.
This allows you to course correct or make adjustments based on current status. It's a similar process to writing development tickets. You start with your epics and larger roadmap projects, then your epics and large initiatives broken down into smaller tasks that go into your sprint to be prioritized. You work on those tasks and reflect how things are going and make changes based on developer and business feedback.
Another part of this is your presence and how you carry yourself in meetings, calls and in the office. Don't assume people aren't watching or paying attention to what you are doing. They are always watching how you act, speak and how you respond to various scenarios. In particular, your team is looking to you for an example of how to behave and operate. Remember you lead from the front and you set the standard. Your actions and behaviors when you interact (and when you don't) with your team members will determine how motivated they are. If you are a new leader or manager and aren't sure how to do this read this post about, working with new development teams as a leader.
Learn how to maximize the skills of your team members to complete larger goals.
"All the adversity I’ve had in my life, all my troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing in the world for you."
- Walt Disney
In Chess, (a two-player strategy game), even a pawn, typically considered the weakest piece, can be used to check and even checkmate a king. So don't underestimate anyone or any skill that anyone on your team has. If they aren't successful or producing, it's only because you haven't found a way to make them successful or you are failing to motivate them properly. Take full responsibility and be 100% accountable for the existing problems and make corrections.
One time, my direct supervisor told me I was going to be inheriting a couple developers who had been reporting to another lead developer. He elaborated and let me know these developers were not effective and if I wanted I could release them. I took a different approach. These developers had been working for the company a combined 25+ years. How come suddenly they are ineffective? I spent time and made an effort to understand them and the issues facing them. In reality, they hadn't grown professionally, they were stagnant and had stayed in their comfort zone of creating websites in the same way for a decade.
They hadn't updated their skills, advocated for learning more or received the training and support they needed to stay effective in their role. To get more detailed, one developer was not comfortable with using version control systems, which was common on my teams. While it was not easy to up-skill and cross train these developers it was worth it. I'm happy to say they stayed with me for over a year. They both helped modernize our tier 1 process and frontend system. Additionally, they both moved on to other development teams. I've stayed in touch with that developer who had to learn version control and she's now an advocate for it on her new team.
Another example, I had a developer who was skilled and very quick with turn around times for simple tasks. However, semi-complex sprint tickets would confound her repeatedly. She wasn't born in a country where English was the primary language and it was her second language. Myself and the lead developer suspected she didn't fully understand what was being asked for in the tickets and lacked confidence to ask questions or clarify details. After a series of 1 on 1's and discussions about ticket performance, she admitted she didn't understand what was being asked at times. We worked with HR and she attended an English course. After only a month, we saw an improvement with her sprint tickets and her confidence. She spoke up more in stand up calls and in sprint planning.
Lead by Example: final take aways
"The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion"
- Paulo Coelho
Leadership by Example reiterates the purpose of an organization. The mission of a business or organization is to solve an underlying customer need in a way that the customer values your product and services, over competing products and services. When you Lead by Example, you make sure that all your actions reinforce, support, and develop your team. This will lead to increased customer and user satisfaction with your company's products and services and internal interactions with your team. In order to get here you have to start with your people.
You need to devote time and effort to your individual team members, and actually listen to what they are saying and understand how you can help them. If you do this, you'll be able to set up your individual team members and team for success, while also motivating and pushing them to accomplish more than they believe they can. Take moments out of your day to get to know all your team members as best as you can. Once you have put them on the path to success, they will deliver. Your leadership gives them incentive to always work their hardest for you, because they know you have their interests in mind. This isn't something you can fake because they will see through you. You need to understand the importance of setting standards and aligning yourself to the teams' goals.