042 | Few Thoughts on Leadership Traits
Be a noob; admit I'm wrong; uplift others
Lately I’ve been thinking about leadership traits. I’d like to reflect on a few things. I’m sure I’ll return in a year and comment something different; but here is what I had on mind for the past 1-2 years.
A year ago I stepped into a refreshed role to cover more areas in the 40-eng org. A break-through happened in trust building with folks: we had an external conflict with a different team; I ended up protecting my engineers’ scope, navigating through different org’s incentives, and putting off the fire. These in return rewarded me with more people’s trust. A few points to reflect:
1/ Ask noob questions, be willing to be the dummest person in the room. It does not matter if the person in front of me is junior or senior. If I let go my ego, my peer will lower the guard and actually share their opinions.
2/ Be willing to say ‘I was wrong’, ‘I am sorry’. This gives everyone permission to try new things and removes the false necessity of ‘perfect impression’. Growing a team of high agency engineers is invaluable. High agency usually means: they have the support structure to actually take actions on their own ideas.
3/ Craft opportunities for my ENG to shine when things go well; step up to take blame when things go south. A lot of great leaders do this unintentionally - they just love uplifting people, giving people credits, and enjoy seeing others grow.
These are not novel ideas. I’m just experiencing them first hand. With all changes happening in the industry and in my company, I think some of these simple traits can go a long way.