Engineering leaders: Becoming the leader you want to follow

If you are in a position of power at your company, be a leader people want to follow and one that you would follow.

It is easy to lose sight on how we got to where we are today, to move forward without ever reflecting what actions contributed to our success and which ones slowed us and others down. The types of problems that are ours to solve change as we advance in our career. We need to accept feedback and truly seek to understand if we are growing with our title, or if our title is growing despite us.

These are the expectations I believe are required to be a productive leader in software engineering:

Create a diverse team that values inclusion and a psychologically safe environment. This is your scaffolding to create a team that feels comfortable taking risks and being vulnerable. Healthy software teams are not homogeneous, they have people with different backgrounds, experiences and personas that build into a cohesive team that can determine the best solutions to meet the companies goals. Engineers are dreamers, that have the ability to materialize those dreams in code, you have to provide the canvas.

Once you have an environment with a skilled team that feels safe, they need clarity and a vision. Providing a what without a why diminishes the value of the diverse…