How to be a great team lead?

Not in order of appearance...

1. Don’t micromanage.
2. Don’t piss your team off.
3. Don’t let your manager run the show, just follow his asks for the team.
4. Be there for your team.
5. Constantly motivate them without being too pushy or “corporate”.
6. Find ways to help them grow with you through training or constantly communication through sharing knowledge.

And the number one rule of them all...
7. Don’t be a douchebag 🙃

Trust me, my previous team lead was a piece of shit (still is) and that ass got demoted to a mere peon now 😂

@Superviral when does it become micromanaging?

📌

@chickie It depends on the level of the developer. Juniors need more attention and mentoring so it is alright to check more frequently how they are doing - sometime they are too shy to ask for help, so if you come to them they might be more comfortable saying they are confused.
Senior developers you are supposed to trust. Trust them to deliver on time, trust them to make the right choices with design and implementation.
If you work in an agile/scrum fashion, you can track the progress on the daily meeting and through the burndown charts. You don't need to pester them twice a day to ask about their progress. You don't need to look over their shoulder when they code.
You try this, and if you see there are people that fall behind, slack off, etc...then you may reconsider how to manage them, and if you want them on the team at all.

@NickyBones thank you so much!!!

Hi @chickie, thanks for asking an important question. So much goes wrong in management.

I'm a huge fan of servant leadership, very different from traditional "control&command". I've recommended the book "Peopleware" for years.

My take:

You're responsible for success of people. Thus make it your main concern to remove their obstacles and especially not become an obstacle yourself. Extra points if you live by the motto "successes belong to the team, failures belong to me".

Devs are experts in what they do. They are also smart, reasonable adults. Trust them, treat them as equals. You most probably don't know better how they should work. They're also "professional question-askers", so forget trying to bullshit them. They'll notice.

In many environments devs get ordered around, their concerns disregarded. Don't be yet another instance of that. Instead, represent and defend your team's interests towards those that are. Managers will accept you as "one of them", use that power.

@VaderNT Are you talking about a manager or a team lead. Where I've worked team lead is part of dev team and so dev itself too.

@joas good point! I was referring to team leads that mostly do management duties.

Tbh so far, I haven't had team leads that actually still do development themselves. A senior dev that inofficially did some "leading" and representing the team on the other hand, yeah I've seen that. He was a pretty chill guy anyway, who never really wanted to lead.