For developers and engineers who once worked independently on their technical projects, moving into the management or executive role can seem like a new world.
Technical leadership involves a careful balance of knowledge and strategy, without the hands-on part of executing a task.
Now that you’ve crossed the professional divide and transitioned from tech into leadership, you want to perform your new role just as well.
These 8 tips can help you navigate your transition, leading others to do their best, too.
1. Stay Up-to-Date With Your Tech Skills
While you’re learning the ropes in your new position, it’s easy to lose track of your old job’s responsibilities. But the tech industry changes by the second, and your leadership authenticity depends on staying relevant with those who follow you.
Do you keep up with the industry trends in management and the C-suite ladder, or stay on top of the tech world so your team can come to you for knowledgeable help?
The answer is, of course, both. Yet, how can you stay up on your tech skills without having two 40-hour jobs?
The good news is that it’s not only possible, but you might just enjoy your leadership role better when you don’t have to give up the tech side entirely.
These simple action steps can slide into the small gaps in your schedule:
- Sign up for continuous learning courses on Udemy, Coursera, and other platforms. Listen to the instructors during your windshield and workout time. Between classes, check out podcasts hosted by or featuring the trending technical leaders.
- Add tech news websites, online magazines, and top tech industry leaders to your socials and computer dashboard so the latest info pops up when you’re scrolling. Even if you don’t read the articles, the headlines and summaries can keep you updated on big changes, like new technologies, technical challenges, and breakthroughs.
- Join your team at major tech conferences and webinars, like Obsidi®’s BFUTR. These experiences will sharpen your technical know-how while enhancing professional networking and boosting team-building.
- Mentor someone (on or outside of your team) and work with them on projects that let you get hands-on while teaching the next generation of high-performing tech devs.
Above all, keep the passion that brought you to your original tech position stoked.
It’s easy to lose the fire when you move behind the desk into management. But if you’re all management work and no coding or tech engineering, it can be a surefire way to burn out.
2. Open the Lines of Communication With Your Team
Remember how important it was for you to feel seen, heard, and valued when you were on the technical side of your job?
Your team needs the same things from you.
Jobs like software development are high-pressure and can lead to burnout. Oftentimes, it’s the leadership that makes all the difference.
How to Make Sure Your Team Feels Valued
There are two extremes of management communication styles: those who value their team’s input and thoughts, and those who think they know everything and don’t need those “beneath them” to offer opinions.
While you might assume that you’ll be an effective and appreciative leader, if you don’t know what that involves, it’s easy to slide into the other extreme.
Ensuring your team feels valued requires intention and consistency. You’re developing trust, which takes time.
If you want those working with you to feel comfortable bringing any concerns to the table, you must create a work environment demonstrating your encouragement of open communication. This involves:
- Leading with clear language. Say what you mean, mean what you say, and be concise. Avoid ambiguity.
- Praising openly when there’s a job well done or growth
- Asking for and acting on valuable feedback
- Answering questions — even the hard ones — honestly and openly.
- Listening to problems and concerns, and being direct with your role in the solution. If you can’t fix something, don’t say that you can. Instead, try to work out a middle ground where possible.
- Granting team members applicable decision-making authority so they know you recognize their talents and skills
More than anything, it’s about listening to what your team tells you they need and adapting to those requests.
Your leadership abilities and communication skills will evolve as your team changes and grows. Through dual-sided open communication, you can all grow together symbiotically, improving productivity, satisfaction, innovation, and profit.
3. Foster a Culture of Inclusion and Allyship
You were in the trenches and saw the disparity among tech workers. Now, you have a chance to do something about it.
When people feel safe and comfortable being different, they’re more productive. However, because diversity remains controversial, many individual workers feel pressure to “fit in” rather than be themselves.
This is particularly prevalent in high tech, where studies show that career advancement for Black, Hispanic, and female workers remains underrepresented. As a leader, you have more of a say in who is hired and who gets to advance in their careers.
Fostering an inclusive workplace makes those in your employ feel safer, creating a reputation for allyship.
4. Make Learning Part of the Workplace
Just as you must continue to stay on top of changes in tech, so must your team. But they don’t want to do it in their “free time.” Giving them opportunities for on-the-clock professional development makes them feel valued — and you get a massive ROI.
Education doesn’t have to be expensive. With platforms like Coursera, Udemy, and edX shifting to cover the latest in cloud automation and other dev tools, you can give your team university-style knowledge without student loan prices.
Look into subscription services, too.
Consider offering company-wide access to tech news websites and reading materials, such as MIT Technology Review, Ars Technica, and Wired. If your work environment allows, you might assign specific articles and employ friendly trivia competitions to see who has read them. (No repercussions if they didn’t, but maybe a free specialty coffee or another perk for the winner!)
No matter what kind of professional development you provide, when it’s on the clock, your team is more likely to attend and learn. Their new knowledge, creativity, and confidence come back to you.
5. Branch Out in Your Hiring Processes
If you have a say in changing the hiring process, it may be time to revamp the old-school interviews. Sure, STAR questioning techniques have their place, and Indeed and LinkedIn can be treasure troves of talent.
But are your current hiring practices aligned with what makes a tech company profitable: diversity?
Numbers don’t lie, and years of research show that companies with a higher representation of women and diverse workers outperform the competition. Production and profit are intricately connected with diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).
In short, making your team more inclusive increases your company’s chances of obtaining and maintaining success.
Hiring for diversity in tech doesn’t mean revamping your recruiting and interview process from scratch. Here is an overview of what it should look like:
- Change your job descriptions to attract a wide range of workers and avoid “hidden codes.”
- Share your company’s DEI values in the job posting and your interview process. This attracts the right people and repels those who don’t share the same mission.
- Ensure the C-suite leaders are trained in inclusion and diversity techniques, and share that knowledge from the top down.
- Make sure your interview questions and process are bias-free.
- Create an atmosphere of inclusivity within the company and actively work to eliminate bias and foster allyship.
Knowing the technical concepts that will help your team advance is great. However, teaching them through leadership that they are safe, valued, and welcome starts at the beginning.
6. Get Social
Whether you’re comfortable with social media or not, being a leader means getting social. No, you don’t have to share your personal life with the world, but you can join the top platforms in your industry and follow successful leaders and tech influencers.
Is social media a strong suit of yours?
Consider building a tech community network focused on your niche and bringing others to it. You can also join existing communities through platforms like GitHub and Reddit’s subreddits.
As we mentioned earlier, attend tech conferences and participate in webinars. Join professional organizations in tech management.
However, the key is to engage; don’t just add these memberships to your list of credentials and then ignore them.
Be strategic about the platforms you use and the communities you join. Make them worth your time by connecting with others and nurturing your network.
7. Grow Your EQ Skills
Consider the various leaders you’ve seen in different roles in your life. There are probably some you’d willingly follow, and others you only put up with because you had to at the time.
You already have the tech talent; it’s time to build your leadership bones. This direction involves honing your soft skills, also known as emotional quotient (EQ).
What kind of leader do you want to be? Your EQ skills shape that person into reality.
Understanding Why EQ is Vital in Leadership
Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to recognize emotions and manage them. EQ is applied to inter- and intrapersonal relationships: you must be able to understand and control your emotions and apply that knowledge to others’ behaviors and feelings.
EQ is broken into two main parts: self-awareness and empathy. Tech leaders who actively devote time to learning about this type of soft skill can better manage and motivate others because they understand their team’s needs and wants. Because of this connection, a deeper relationship develops between the manager and employee, fostering:
- Loyalty
- Respect
- Improved teamwork
- Increased job satisfaction
When someone leads team management with a strong EQ, the result is often better workplace outcomes. This criterion may be the most crucial factor behind success and performance in the workplace.
Emotional intelligence encompasses the broad areas of self-awareness, self-regulation, social awareness, and social skills.
But growing your EQ skills begins with self-awareness. Only when you’re aware of your feelings, responses, and behaviors will you have the empathy necessary to apply those emotions to people management.
8. Open Your Team Up to Mentoring
Did you ever have a mentor while learning the ropes in your education or career?
If so, you know the value of a trustworthy and knowledgeable guide.
The tech industry is highly competitive and challenging. Mentorship can give your team the support it needs to thrive and open doors within your company to top emerging talent.
Through senior management mentorship, those open to working with others learn tech skills and develop their critical thinking competencies and technical problem-solving abilities.
Working with someone who has “been there” helps newer tech workers develop other essential skill sets necessary for growth in their field and career expansion.
It’s a dual-sided benefit, though.
Mentors offer guidance and insight to mentees, providing feedback, assisting with a career planning roadmap, and identifying growth opportunities. Mentees give those who have been behind the scenes for a while the chance to get hands-on experience with projects and refresh their professional networking and technical skills.
When a mentor-mentee relationship works at its best, the two may exchange perspectives and generate innovative ideas to move forward.
Yet, the mentoring program isn’t available everywhere. As an executive or manager, it may fall to you to encourage stakeholders and leadership positions to open their schedules and share their knowledge to help those in the company grow.
Conclusion
Moving into an executive position shifts your focus from code reviews and engineering management to people leadership. This change can be a rewarding challenge, especially if you can hold onto your tech passion while helping others grow in the positions you left behind.
Still, your workload is already filling up, and having a community to make this new role easier would be beneficial. That’s where Obsidi® comes in.
