I speak with a lot of people from the IT industry, I cant say I am thrilled to hear what people have to say about their leadership. It has never been this bad.
So here is an effort to instill in young readers, what I consider the basic tenets of leadership. If you find it valuable/interesting, do share with your scrum team.
Lampard: Mourinho is best manager I've played for
People come first - ALWAYS
A company I used to work for had a value Customer First Always.
I disagreed. For me if you take care of your people, people will take care of your customers. Trust me there is no feeling like being treated fairly at the workplace.
“I have to do my work well, my leaders will take care of my growth and personal
aspirations”.
One might ask in the era of layoffs, how can I as a leader be open with my people.
I for one, shared my apprehensions, my vulnerability with my people which only increased their respect for me and they understood even the toughest decisions I had to make.
Listen
I have observed many a times, an employee has a problem, he runs to his manager and the manager is, with all good intentions, intent on taking action to solve the problem. Many a times, people come to you because they just want you to hear them out. They might be looking for that one piece of encouragement, the one pat on the back which will take them out from the burn out. Listen proactively and resist the urge to offer solutions. As a human being I will always value my own solution/idea than yours.
Put your ego in the trunk of the car before stepping into the office
It’s a common sight to see leaders keeping distance from employees because apparently it gives them the aura, the charisma and a load of bull crap like this.
As a leader your job is to serve and support. Read that again. if you get it you will be one of the best leaders, I guarentee.
Always hire people who are better than you.
I had one simple rule in our team. Anyone we hire - internally or externally, must be better than the person/people who are doing the interviews ofcourse normalized for experience and role. As a team, our aim should be to be a minute
percentile point better than yesterday. This is a shortcut to achieve that objective.
Good people improve the team organically. This also helped me manage people who were several grades above me, to think of it, you can learn from everyone around you. Go back to point 3.
That’s it. Apply these 4 basic tenets, irrespective of your grade or level and see what impact you will make on people around you, your team and the more people who start doing this, the more positive impact it will have on the company itself.