Tech leads often assume leading people is like coding, but the article shows why that mindset breaks down and offers concrete tactics-emotional intelligence, team maturity models, and situational leadership-to become effective leaders.
Tech leads are frequently promoted on technical merit alone, left to figure out people management with no guidance. The piece debunks the myth that you can write tests for people, apply DRY principles to conversations, or monitor morale without micromanaging. It shows how this gap creates frustration, latency, and missed impact.
The author argues that leadership starts with self-leadership: knowing your drives, managing emotions, and building emotional intelligence. He recounts a heated meeting where he used empathy and social skills to reset the discussion, resulting in a productive outcome without dominating the conversation.
Understanding team dynamics is another core theme. By mapping teams onto the Bruce Tuckman model-forming, storming, norming, performing-the article gives leaders a diagnostic lens to recognize why teams stall and how to guide them forward. References to Google's Project Aristotle reinforce the idea that collective intelligence, not individual IQ, drives performance.
Finally, the piece promotes situational leadership, moving relationships from telling to delegating. It shares a personal example of improving collaboration with DevOps by shifting from a request-only stance to regular joint planning, which eventually led to a delegating partnership. The ultimate message is that a tech lead should become obsolete by building other leaders, not by hoarding authority.
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