make it a secret, start with "dont tell anyone else but..."
I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
121–130 of 136 posts
Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
#122Don't rely on hierarchy. Earn others' trust as you would when you are an equal. Don't expect deference just because of your position. Although hierarchical decision making may be more efficient, it's an unnatural system and anti-social and easily generates animosity. You'd do better to empower your peers instead, and show them you are able to listen to them as well. Just like you would with friends.
"Leading without authority"
in other words buffering of culpability.
Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
#123Just for the laughs, some year ago I had to remind one of the juniors that I was the one in charge, not him.
Since he looked unimpressed I asked him to hand me a pen on his desk. He promptly gave me the pen.
"See? You're already doing whatever I ask."
Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
#124Don't rely on hierarchy. Earn others' trust as you would when you are an equal. Don't expect deference just because of your position. Although hierarchical decision making may be more efficient, it's an unnatural system and anti-social and easily generates animosity. You'd do better to empower your peers instead, and show them you are able to listen to them as well. Just like you would with friends.
No. Never accept responsibility without power. That is a lesson I wish I'd learned much earlier in my life.
Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
#125sounds like that person isn't a tech lead
Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
#126I still remember when my previous employer has lost domain for like 3 months. Boss and his business partner have setup company and I have joined later. Business partner left. - I was trying to figure out who have access to domain X? It is not on AWS and by whois it is under some random registrar in Europe. I got just shrug from boss. Everything works so why bother? - After 3 years of scratching my head and try to rep…
No real sysops there?
Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
#127I've been tech lead at different companies. Every time I switched companies, I started out as senior dev and got promoted into the team lead role again; each time with full support of my team. I don't look or act like a leader and this has been a hurdle for me. But what typically happens anyway is; within a few months, my code ends up being a core part of the project; my modules become heavily depended upon and someh…
While I am not a software developer, it sounds like our career paths have had the same trajectory, and I'm wondering what the common factor is across industries. I work in automation (mostly) as a lead tech and professional troubleshooter because I am familiar with a wide and varied amount of automation technologies. I've met plenty of people over the years who have much more advanced skills than myself, but never go…
I wonder how much empathy plays into it? I’ve trended towards teach lead roles and not that I feel my code is necessarily special, I think it’s clean enough and concise at times - occasionally some ASCII art slips in of course…
But what I have noticed across multiple companies is that I offer feedback for reviews that is thorough when it counts - I may pick apart a huge PR with lots of notes and suggestions, and that’s because the change has the potential to impact large systems. I also explain why, and I ask questions of the engineer to make sure I know why they did a thing because maybe I missed something.
I also talk to managers, product, and design, and do a lot of listening. Often times people are working towards a goal, or working against some barrier to getting their goals met, and being able to listen and understand them lends to a lot of credibility. And when you do a lot of that listening, you inherently gain a good amount of understanding of the systems - both technical and human.
When the time comes for someone to say “we should have a new lead on X”, the people that listen and engage tend to rise to that position naturally.
I think accountability and empathy go hand in hand to some degree - by owning something, you’re also saying “I understand how my work might impact other things, other people, and I want to reassure you that I have your back”.
Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
#128Earlier quoted context omitted.
It sounds like he is implying something, as in everyone switches jobs, but he specifically points out he changes jobs after being promoted, which I assume he did for a reason. But I cant tell if its because he was unhappy and for what reason. Otherwise why would he specifically point that out?
If you’ve been in the game a few decades, you’ll have changed jobs for all sorts of reasons. Mostly not relevant.
I cant believe noone else found that statement confusing
Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
#129I've been tech lead at different companies. Every time I switched companies, I started out as senior dev and got promoted into the team lead role again; each time with full support of my team. I don't look or act like a leader and this has been a hurdle for me. But what typically happens anyway is; within a few months, my code ends up being a core part of the project; my modules become heavily depended upon and someh…
I don't understand why that is a logical progression. Writing good code and leading a team needs vastly different skill-sets in my eyes.
Might work for some projects. For really complex projects (which is what I typically work on), strong engineering helps and so a lead-by-example approach tends to work out and it helps to motivate the team.
Also, I can give my team members detailed feedback. I think they take my constructive criticisms more seriously if I also give them praise which is detailed and accurate. You need a hands-on technical person to really understand people's strengths and weaknesses in a concrete way. Being hands-on also makes you more approachable; people will tell you things that they wouldn't tell a non-technical manager.
Re: I'm a Tech Lead, and nobody listens to me. What should I do?
#130[dead]