Leading from the trenches

This post is inspired by material in my book, The Only Trait of a Leader.

Everyone in IT knows that your ability to work well with others is at least as important as your technical acumen. But while “teamwork” is a mantra for just about everyone, leadership is often left to higher ups. Here’s the thing: leadership matters to you, right now, even if you don’t want to have your name on a parking place some day.

Thanks to thousands of years of social conditioning we think in hierarchies. If we aren’t at the top of a hierarchy then we don’t exert our leadership because “it’s someone else’s responsibility.” But leadership is not about titles, fame, money, power, or position. It’s about followers. A person is a leader because other people follow the example he or she sets. It really is that simple.

Being an effective leader is good for your career in the trenches or in the board room

Even as an individual contributor or small team lead you care about what you’re doing and you’d like to see things done the way you think is best. Developing leadership skills will help make that happen. As a person who builds teams I cannot tell you how much I value—and how rare it is to find—people who can see the big picture and know the part they play in it. Developing your leadership skills can help you make sure that you can be successful doing the things you love, even if you never want to manage a team larger than yourself.

In addition to adding a secret weapon to your Ninja Worker arsenal, developing effective leadership skills can also get you into management faster if you want to go that way. Pursuing a management track isn’t for everyone. But if it is for you, mastering leadership skills is one of the fastest ways to promotion.

Let’s look at a couple ways that you can start developing your own leadership skills right now, even if you’re just starting your career in IT.

1. Seeing the big(ger) picture

One of the most common traits that employees lack at the beginning of their careers (and sometimes later on, too) is perspective. Most of us are confronted each day with more things to do than time to do them. A key to your success—and the success of your entire team—is recognizing which things are important enough to take priority and actually get done. In order to do this you’ve got to be able to see the bigger picture.

Try to understand how what you are working on right now fits in to the picture at least two levels up from you. You might “just” be working on a piece of software to write out the new output file format, but if you know that piece of software is needed before the product ships, and if you realize that this product is supposed to turn your company’s fourth quarter revenues around, you will be totally focused on getting that work done.

2. Understand what could be better today

A trait most often desired in strong leaders is vision: the ability to look around and see how things could be, not just how they are. Developing a vision that is powerful enough to inspire others while remaining concrete enough to actually accomplish takes practice. You can start getting that practice right now.

Look around at your work environment, tools, and processes: how could things be better? What one change could you envision that would make you more productive? Or more relevant to the company? How about for your whole team, or division?

You want to be careful here, especially at first.

You might get fired up about some of your ideas and want to run straight to your boss and fill him in on all the great stuff he should be doing. There are often reasons, and sometimes good reasons, that things are the way they are, and you or your boss may not be able to change those things right now.

The key is to take the time to do the thinking. Then, as time goes on, look for appropriate opportunities to share your ideas with those around and get their feedback. Then, when you’re at that staff meeting and out of the blue the boss says “How can we make things better?” you’ll be ready.

3. Responsibility

Take responsibility for your own actions. For example, when someone compliments you for a job well done, accept their thanks or congratulations humbly.

By the same token when you make a mistake, don’t make excuses or try to avoid the blame. Admit your error, learn from it, and don’t fail in the same way again. And if you want extra credit, go find the people you inconvenienced and apologize.

4. Recognition and reward

We all like to be recognized for our contributions. But this recognition doesn’t just have to come from the boss.

When a coworker meets a milestone or stays all night to pull the team out of a jam, say “thanks” or give a word of congratulations. It doesn’t have to be fancy or formal.

This is a great habit to form early in your career, and giving this kind of peer support also provides a low penalty learning environment to discover what kinds of praise and recognition people respond best to.

5. Mentorship

One of the most valuable aspects of leadership is the strong desire to develop others so that they can reach their full potential. But, again, you don’t have to wait until you are the boss to start doing this.

As you learn and develop, look for opportunities to pass your skills on to others. Helping others develop is immensely fulfilling, but its also great for your team and can help establish you as a trusted expert with your peers and a valuable leader to your boss. Just don’t spend so much time helping others that you don’t get your own job done!