You are The Butterfly Effect
Your actions influence your team members, and more deeply on less senior persons, and it's something you, as Tech Lead or Engineering manager, have to master
"A butterfly flaps its wings in Pekin and a storm is created in Florida"
This is one of the typical sentences heard when chaos theory comes along. How leadership and mentoring could be introduced using this concept?
In this issue, you will not find a deep analysis of the chaos theory neither the mathematical analysis from Edward Lorenz, but you will find how this theory is reflected in the leadership and mentoring aspects of professional life.
In this issue, we cover:
How do you influence the learnings of your team members
The dark side of a leader
The light side of a leader
Let’s start with the first point and describe the influence of a Tech Lead over the team.
The Butterfly Effect movie, from 2004, bases its trunk on the fact that your future can change based on the experiences that you see and you feel since you are a young person, and how they impact you. I truly believe this. If you saw the movie, most probably you already predict that I’ll talk about the different ways in which the career of a professional in a tech company can be impacted, based on the leadership and mentoring (even coaching) that will drive that person.
All of us, on or daily basis, follow one or more leaders. In tech companies is the same. You are, as Tech Lead, followed by a set of persons (let’s call them your team) who decided to trust you and follow your lead.
When people follow you they watch you every time. Every single gesture, action, or behavior, it’s scrutinized, analyzed, and consumed by your team, sometimes even without them noticing, and this is something that any leader should be aware of.
You influence your team members just because of the fact you are their leader. Keep this in mind.
The dark side of a leader
From my experience, there are good leaders and bad leaders, even though there are different ways of leadership and people like to be led in different ways. I think 99% of the times a "bad leader" does not realize that the leadership he/she exercises is wrong. Because of different reasons, like the way that leader was led by her/his predecessor in the past.
A leader can impact in a really negative way over people in a certain area of influence.
People get from leaders the good and the bad. If your leadership exposes only bad practices, the people you lead will follow your way in the future. Even worst, they will not become the best version of themselves, when actually they could be.
There are many professionals that have seen their careers truncated because they fell into a company with the wrong leadership on top. It is difficult to learn good practices by seeing only bad practices.
The light side of a leader
I’ve just mentioned and I’ll do it again: People get from leaders the good and the bad. This is life. Although, it means that it’s predictable and you can do something about it. Lead by example.
It is your responsibility, as Tech Lead or Engineer Manager, to lead by example, and try, as much as possible, to behave in a way that will help your team to grow in a healthy way.
Do you like Pain au Chocolat? It’s really good stuff. After some tough days of hard work, setting up new parts of complex infrastructure as a service, you feel really exhausted. One day, you find your leader joining the daily coffee break in the morning with a small box of Pain au Chocolat, to share and celebrate the success of those difficult days. An insignificant action? maybe yes, even from the leader's perspective; any impact on the team? you never know. Maybe for some, it's simply great that somebody came along with a delicious (and free!) breakfast but, for others, maybe, it was a game-changing action, making people more engaged. Cause, effect. Little things matter.
Just a simple and unexpected breakfast can make people happy and make a difference.
As a leader, you should understand the people around you, find the best way they learn, work, and grow. You have to think about their goals and make them yours, so you will be able to find the right path for them to follow up and succeed.
Leadership and mentoring are hard, and sometimes you have to drive people through ways that they neither expect nor understand. Take the hard choice when you truly believe it’s the best way for helping them.
Leadership is not about recognition, it's about helping people to succeed, and you have an influence on that.
Summary
I’ve seen many times (more than I would like to) people with great talent, a hidden gem, with great potential, but working under the wrong leadership ending in a situation of waste of talent, really slow-down the career and possibilities for that talented person. Even quitting the tech field for another (totally different) career.
As leaders, we have to take care of people and be sure that they feel good and safe. To ensure that people can grow, as professionals (maybe as persons too?), so they reach their maximum potential.
Have you ever realized that someone you use to lead got the bad parts of you? Did you work under bad leadership? What do you do to stay on the light side? Looking forward to reading your comments!