In addition to dealing with the responsibilities of leadership itself, a team leader faces many technical challenges daily. Code quality is one of them. It’s a gargantuan topic and in the modern software development approach, it has become not only necessary but mandatory.
In this article, we’ll explore some key points that can hopefully help you perform your very best in this strategic role.
How To Develop Leadership And Assert Yourself As Team Leader
A role is just a role. Being a great leader has more to do with skills than the seat you occupy at the table. It’s not about the position you hold within the organization, but the position you hold with your colleagues and team members.
Modern leadership outgrew the old concept of “the boss”. Nowadays, a leader is expected to be an extraordinary listener and someone others can rely on. If you want to lead a team, work on being ready to both guide the ship and delegate this job to someone else. Not to mention cleaning the deck every once in a while.
Empathy is key. And knowing how things work end to end helps you understand and connect with others. A good leader has a broader view of the entire process and can evaluate what is needed both product and company-wise.
It is important to keep up with new and old methodologies, but more importantly, to mix them and question them. The best methodology is the one that works for the company/product and the team.
Learn more about leadership skills:
https://blog.vanhack.com/blog/soft-skills-tech-talents-are-important/
How To Gain Trust And Authority
Being organized goes a long way when establishing trust and authority. Other important skills are project management, working together with the management layer, and validating technical features and product scope.
Let’s not forget about soft skills. A team lead excels in technical abilities but to be a trustful leader you’ll need to understand people. After all, code is nothing without a person who types it, right? One of the main attributes of a good leader is the ability to balance technical and communication skills.
Learn more about a senior professional (it has more to do with leadership than you may think!):
https://blog.vanhack.com/blog/what-does-a-senior-developer-actually-mean/
How to give technical feedback and support your team’s growth
Another great way to gain trust and position yourself as a team lead is to give consistent feedback. An open dialogue helps the team members evolve as professionals and value your leadership.
If your company doesn’t have a good process for technical feedback, that’s a great opportunity to create one. Pull Requests validation, code review, and focal meetings about a specific topic, are good examples of feedback practices that you and your company may adopt.
We had a great talk about leadership and soft skill on VanHackCON, check it out:
https://blog.vanhack.com/blog/global-tech-companies-need-soft-skills-are-you-ready/
Becoming a good leader takes time and effort
There is no cookie-cutter path to becoming a successful leader. There are going to be challenges along the way, but it’s not impossible to overcome them.
As a team leader you’ll face many difficulties, but to ensure code quality and team happiness you’ll need to be patient and always look at all layers, including software and management.
Make sure to provide a good environment for the team and also good tools and services, especially the ones focused on DX (developer experience). Code quality is hard but it can become a daily task if good tools are available.
Note: This article was written by our partners over at BrazilJS and is being reproduced here with their authorization.
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