Are You A Good Leader? How Do You Know?
By: Calvin Bushor
Tags: Tech, Entrepreneurship, Startup, Leadership, Technology

One of my favorite interview questions is, “How do you know that you are succeeding as a new leader? How do you know that you are doing a good job?” Okay, that was two questions, but they are asking the same thing in two different ways. This question is testing the candidate if they have wrapped their heads around what it means to be a leader and that success is very different compared to other roles, like being a Software Engineer or Product Owner.

As a Software Engineer, my success comes in the form of the problems I solve and the speed and quality at which I solve them. As a Product Owner, I can easily point to the metrics of my product and talk to users to understand if I am succeeding or not. As a Leader, I don’t have something tangible that I can point at and say, “I built that!” I can’t feel or see success in the same way as someone who produces something.

As a Leader, I need to update my definition of success. I also need to change how I find out if I am succeeding or not because it’s no longer binary like it was in my previous role when I was contributing to a solution or product.

What is the definition of success as a leader?

One month ago, we were interviewing a potential new software engineering leader. I asked this candidate the question about what their definition of success was and at the end of the interview, they turned the question back on all of us. They asked us, as experienced leaders, how did we know if we were succeeding or not? First, well-played candidate. Second, this is where we see that the answer to this question is not simple nor clear. Here’s what everyone said.

The team is growing — This was my answer. I led off by saying that I know I am doing my job well when everyone on the team is growing in their careers and that we are getting better each and every day. It was a little fluffy and lacking details, but that’s what I said. Not my most inspirational answer ever but hey, we’re human, right? The team is happy and fulfilled — This is a much better answer in my opinion compared to what I said. This leader cares deeply about their team and they wanted to emphasize that when everyone on their team feels safe, fulfilled, and enjoys what they are doing and who they are doing it with, she knows that she’s doing her job. We are executing effectively — This answer is what most leaders focus on. We are here to make sure our teams do their jobs, to produce, and to impact the outcome. Yes, without achieving this, we will be out of the job. How we achieve this is something entirely different. We’ll cover this another day. We are making an impact — This answer was great because we can have the happiest team on the planet and we can be the most efficient team ever to exist, but to what end? If our teams are not impacting the outcome by helping our clients and solving our business problems, then we are not doing our jobs. We need to help our teams spend their time and energy on things that drive value. By focusing on this, our teams are more engaged because they know that what they are doing matters. Great answer! We build things the right way — This was the technical version of answer number three listed above. We need to make sure that our teams not only execute effectively but do so in the right way. We cannot take shortcuts or introduce poor quality into our product, otherwise, our client’s experience and our business will suffer. Absolutely true statements and again, as leaders, if we let this happen, we will get fired.

This concluded our round table response to the candidate’s question and upon reflecting, I realized that answering this question is really hard and there isn’t just one answer. Additionally, we could have easily mentioned something related to setting a vision for the team or said that we are growing other leaders as part of our answers. There isn’t a clear answer to this question.

You’ll notice though, all of our answers had something in common. Every answer was about the team. The team was growing. The team was happy. The team executed. The team makes an impact and the team solves problems the right way. Not once did anyone say that success was about the Leader themselves. There wasn’t mention of being promoted within a number of years or obtaining a bonus as part of their success.

As a leader, your success is attached to the success of the team. Our job as leaders is to help the team succeed. Our job is to help the team grow. Our job is to help the team make a lasting impact. Achieving these outcomes may come in many flavors but ultimately, our success is no longer ours alone, it’s dependent on the success of the team.

Let’s put it to practice

I am going to use the analogy of a soccer team for this example. A team is made up of many different types of players. There’s offense, defense, midfield, and a goalie. This maps well to our teams. We have Software Engineers, Product Owners, Designers, UX Researchers, etc. When I played soccer, I was a forward on offense. My job was to score goals and to help others score goals! I was recognized by my stats and at the end of the year, I won awards to the goals and assists that I made. This is the same as being a Software Engineer. At the end of the year, I was recognized for the problems I solved and how I helped others solve problems.

Now, let’s take a look at the coach of the soccer team. The coach spends most of their energy during practice where they work with the players one on one, in pairs, and in groups. They’ll stop and restart sessions to focus on skills, thought processes, and behaviors. They’ll push the team's endurance to the max during practice and it’s in preparations for the game.

When the game begins, the coach is basically out of the picture. They can do minor things during the game, like sub people in and out, or give an inspirational half-time speech, but their job was to prepare the team to win. The coach can’t step onto the field and score a goal for the team, it’s up to them. This maps directly to leadership. As a Leader, I focus on preparing my team to win the game or to solve problems the right way. To have the skills, mindset, and behaviors to succeed. Similar to a soccer coach, when the team loses, the coach loses, the same goes for leadership. When the team fails, the leader fails.

So, are you a good leader?

This is a hard question, right? If you are focused on building the best team you can and invest in helping them succeed, you’re probably headed in the right direction. Getting feedback from your team, business, and your data will help you know for sure.

Remember, Leaders, are coaches. Our job is to help our team learn and develop so that they can win. Our success hinges on theirs.