10 tips on How to be a better leader

1. Always be informed, choose when to be involved — just because you are the manager doesn’t mean you need to contribute to every single activity that is taking place in your team. If it’s going well, just let it be — your involvement will be incremental at best, and distracting at worst. The simple rule is that the more things you are involved in, the less your contribution is. So focus on a small set of high impact and complex projects. From my experience, key areas where a manager contributes most are:

• Getting executive buy in, and providing “air coverage” for the team to execute without worrying about organizational distractions.
• Projects at an early brainstorming stage, which would benefit from a fresh, wide perspective.
• Struggling projects — as a manager, you have a broader and less entrenched view than the team working on the project. Therefore, you can see challenges more objectively, and help the team make hard decisions.
• Projects with external dependencies and partners, especially from other functions or industries — managing such relationships and understanding the value of other functions is not necessarily the core competence of your team members, and an “us vs them” state of mind are quite common. Bringing in a more objective and mature perspective could avoid distractions for your team, as well as escalations for you.

2. Manage your time, don’t let it manage you — you will discover very early on that problems and requests quickly show up as urgent escalations for you to deal with. You must learn to proactively allocate time for such interruptions or firefighting will be the only thing you will ever do, never graduating from the “urgent” to the “important”. Allocate time on your calendar for dealing with unplanned escalations. If there are certain groups that often escalate to you — schedule 1–2 weekly half hour slots with them, where all issues can be discussed. This may sound a lot, but it’s much better than dealing with a constant stream of random issues.

3. Have team members own missions, not tasks — a mission states what is it that we are trying to achieve, and the strategic rationale — the why. Tasks make up the plan how to achieve it. Missions leave space for creativity, allow flexibility as circumstances change, and encourage a sense of ownership and accountability. Empower team members to be the leaders of their missions. There is usually more than one “right” way to do things, so let team members carve their own path. Even if you think your way is better in some senses. State your perspective clearly, but note that accountability and ownership have added value of their own; People will focus their energy on proving their strategy right instead of trying to prove that you were wrong.

4. Ask, don’t tell — when you tell, guide, or answer — you close the discussion. When you ask — you open it. For example, in a product review, you can simply state what you think the key features and success metrics should be. But you will add more value by facilitating a constructive discussion about what the team and key stakeholders suggest, what’s the rationale behind it, and what other alternatives were considered. A few points to note:

• It matters what you ask — my tip: ask about everything — assumptions, analysis, conclusions, goals, neglected directions — you have the power to force rethinking and reevaluation.
• It matters who you ask — the best ideas don’t always come from the most outspoken people. The true experts may remain silent unless directly addressed. You have the power to fix that. Either ask them explicitly during the meeting, or send an email to them after or before for their opinion, pull them aside, ask in the 1:1. You can even create a role for them to provide that input.
• It matters how you ask — it’s better to genuinely ask in an effort to understand a point, rather than to question it. When drilling down to understand, errors and issues will naturally rise.
• It matters when you ask — there is a time to stop asking, and make decisions. When your team can’t reach a satisfying decision on their own, and needs you to make a decision — don’t drag your feet, and don’t delegate decision making. Communicate broadly and clearly that a decision was made, and what the decision is. Keep public track of key decisions. If you or someone else want to reopen an agreed decision — make it explicitly. Decisions drive progress.

5. Remove obstacles, don’t push on a string — when a team member constantly misses on milestones or goals for a certain project, the managerial instinct is press and nag in an attempt to force progress (sometimes even unintentionally, just by requesting frequent updates). Assume people are not lazy or stupid. So instead of pushing try to identify the root cause and remove the roadblock. Many times what seems to be an execution or strategy problem, is actually only a minor issue of earlier misinformed planning and goal setting. Especially for new projects, goals and milestones are set early on before the problem domain is fully understood. These may prove to be impossible or irrelevant goals, yet some team members will be hesitant to push back against them fearing it will be perceived as failure (especially if these were set by “management”, who might still be blind to the fact that they are impossible and irrelevant). You have the power to help your team reset their goals and plans to be more realistic and relevant. Another common issue is team members being over subscribed, ending up in late deliveries at mediocre quality. This is especially acute in cultures where everything is “URGENT AND IMPORTANT” and constantly piles up. Help your team members prioritise what are the truly most important items, and offload/postpone the rest.

6. Focus on people’s strengths — especially in the first few months, aim to get to know your team members through their strengths. Ask them what are they good at, which projects are going well for them, what are their successes, and what are they proud of. Don’t worry — weaknesses and challenges will bubble up. Moreover, if your team members are confident that you are aware of their successes and strengths, they will be more willing to share their issues and challenges. I found that acknowledging and strengthening a strength is at least as effective as fixing an issue.

7. Manage out low performers *quickly* — the sooner, the better. Better for them, better for the team, better for you. When done quickly and professionally, you will be surprised by the positive feedback from everyone. Team members who are just a poor match for the role, and have the potential to do well in another team or role — help them find a better place in the organisation. As for the others — manage them out, don’t pass them on to a new manager. The three rules I follow are:

• It’s all about the people — goals and focus change, but if you get the right people on the team, you will succeed anywhere you choose to go.
• If you don’t manage out the low performers, your strong performers will eventually leave the team — The former is a headache, but the latter is worse.
• Zero is bigger than negative — it’s better not to have any person at all than have the wrong one. Lazy, negative and untrustworthy people poison the well. Incapable and weak performers — they are a burden on the team

If your team gets a reputation for having low performers, you are doomed. The opposite reputation is great for attracting top talent.

8. Let team members fail — you can’t scale yourself by doing other people’s work. You can only scale by having your team members learn and grow, and failing is a highly effective learning tool. Clearly, apply judgement here — don’t let people fail catastrophically, from which there is no return. But don’t be afraid to let them go in directions you think are wrong, even if it means missing on goals or paying some price. Provide your opinion very clearly, but don’t force it on them. Failures allow people to learn accountability first hand, as well as identify their areas for development — planning, goal setting, project management, and execution. Make sure your team members understand the value of failing fast, and that they know that when they fail — you will have their backs.

9. If it’s important for you — repeat it! You might think you said it a million times already. You might think everybody knows it by heart by now. Think again, because you will be surprised. Especially when it comes to slightly more strategic topics, which are beyond the day to day. Such as “Why are we doing this”, “What are our strategic goals”, “What’s the single most important metric for us?” What’s next?”. Repeat your messages also in the interaction you have with the people you are reporting to. You will know you succeeded when people start to cite or quote the exact phrasing that you use in their own meetings.
People are bombarded with infinite email and information, and it’s hard to fish out the important yet non-urgent messages. Repetition is an effective signal.

10. Elevate your team, don’t crush it — when you constantly interfere with the daily operations of your team members, you discourage their sense of ownership and accountability, disempower them in the eyes of others, and most probably frustrate them. It also takes up your own time and focus, introducing alternative cost. In contrast, when you delegate your own tasks and areas of responsibility to your team members, you provide them new growth opportunities and experiences. It also releases time for you to take on new initiatives and responsibilities. Clearly, delegate responsibly — make sure the team members have the necessary skills and resources (I.e. time) to succeed, and provide them with the required guidance and support. But a good rule of thumb to remember is delegate, delegate, delegate — as much as you can! What might be a dull task to you, may be a growth opportunity for others.

Managing is an ongoing personal development process, during which you constantly acquire new techniques and skills, and adapt your own personal management style. I found it useful to “collect” mentors and role models along the way, and pick up tips and insights from them. What do you think about the points listed above? What other tips would you recommend?