Failing as a team leader
Tags: career, productivity, leadership, failures
Published: 2021-09-30 21:32:44

Becoming a good leader is a journey that takes time and patience. There is plenty of articles out there about how to become one but what about looking at common mistakes most new leaders make? Even if you strive to be the best you will not be able to avoid some failures on your journey. Here I'm sharing mistakes I made in my first leadership role so that you can learn from them too.   

## Backstory  
I've been building websites for some time (I was learning doing layouts with tables to give you an idea) but only had 4 years of professional experience before my promotion. I knew the team and the product we worked on quite well. After being in the company for a year I have confidently accepted promotion to a team leader role. I knew it will be exciting experience, yet I was not prepared for the amount of mistakes I was going to make along the way.   
  

## You don't become a leader by getting promoted!  
This is not a breakthrough realization but many people including me is oblivious to the fact until it is verbalized to them. After promotion I did not suddenly become smarter, more capable or gained superpowers. I knew this but it did not stop me to act like it. I was trying to have an answer to every question and come up with solution to every problem which was not only overwhelming but also became frustrating when those answers and made up solutions turned out to be incorrect. Lot of bad decisions were made as I was trying to cover up that I do not have the correct answers.

Looking back at this time I wish I had been more open about my lack of experience and used the opportunity to learn from other more experienced colleagues in leadership roles. It would allow me to learn more and be better in my role earlier.

## Scared of delegation  
It is not an understatement when delegation is referred to as art. Same as art it needs understanding, personal touch, experience and lot of patience. While I was aware of the concept, I was actively trying to avoid it and take 'shortcuts' by using it as a last resort.  
  
By doing this I was unknowingly taking away growth opportunities from other team members and passively indicating they don't have my trust. As a result they were losing confidence in their own work and grew doubtful of their own skills. And I instead of helping others to grow, was drowning under the workload that could be with appropriate support handled by anyone on the team.  
  
Delegation is hard but it is effective tool to getting more done and enabling leaders to focus their time where it is most impactful. Getting it right takes practice and some experimentation but when done correctly it is invaluable skill.
  
## Giving too little freedom (micromanagement)  
When I actually delegated some work I resorted to the worst management approach of all - micromanaging. Incorrect assumptions about my role led me to believe that I have (or need to have) the best idea how things should be done. Again communicating lack of trust in my team members I repeatedly commanded every step of the project, what is the order of tasks and timing expectations without proper discussions.  
  
As expected others became uncomfortable to share their own ideas and would suppress their opinions and creativity. In one of the meetings upon my request for ideas my colleague replied: "Why don't you just tell us the solution?". At first this lack of interest in cooperation made me angry, until I realized that this was the working relationship I have established.  

## Giving too much freedom  
In a poor attempt to improve on my micromanagement approach I chose the other end of the extreme scale. Instead of outlining the specific methods and solutions I've disengaged completely. After giving the loose project brief to my team, I would let everyone work on their own and only check-in for updates on a progress.  
  
Initially this made everyone little bit happier (comparing to being micromanaged) but frustration was back towards the end of the project when we realized that work in progress not only goes far beyond deadline but does not fully meet project requirements. This was complete failure in my core responsibility - being a leader.   

## Lack of clear communication  
"Communicate, communicate, communicate!" were the words of wisdom from my colleague manager after another missed deadline due to miscommunication of the project brief. English is not my native language and same applies to most of my colleagues, however I do not think this was the problem. I simply assumed it is enough to say everything only once. Whatever the outcome was from the management meeting I only communicated directly relevant bits to the team without the rest of the details. No one else had any idea why do we work on this specific thing, how are the priorities set or how is the rest of the company affected by our work. I thought those details were not important to do the work so I kept them to myself. Same applied to communication to higher ups. I assumed all issues within my team or technology we were working with, were to be solved only by me and my team. Keeping the details to myself blocked my colleagues from making informed decisions. Lot of time was lost because incorrect priorities were set due to lack of communication and inherent failure to plan.  
Best communication practices suggest to communicate the same message on multiple channels, reinforce by repetition, varying formulation and even ask the other party to confirm what was agreed to avoid misunderstanding. Communication is a critical tool that makes everything much harder when neglected.  
  
## Making changes without thinking    
It was clear to everyone that our existing workflow did not work well. Some of the bugs were not being reported through our bug tracker so when someone else came across the same bug it was unclear whether it is being worked on or not. When I investigated why is this happening, few people reported that system for reporting bugs is too complex so they preferred to report it directly to individual developers. To fix the complex bug tracker I have decided to change the software completely for next shiny new thing. This new system was  an improvement but because I have fixed the wrong problem it only made the whole situation worse. Now everyone complained that they don't know how to use the new bug tracker and other people wanted to go back to 'old ways' of doing things. I have not considered how impactful this change is and that it can be more difficult to adjust to.

Before making such a changes evaluate what improvements it brings. Consider who will get affected, time investment required to make the change and cost of training. Then weigh these improvements against cost of implementation and training to make sure it will be worth to implement. Remember you don't need to (and probably should not) do this alone. Get input from other departments to help with final decision.
  
  
## Conclusion
Being a team leader for the first time is hard. Your safety net becomes much smaller and your decisions have bigger impact. If you are due to be promoted to leadership role do not get scared by my experience. Even though it might sound like I was only failing, there were lot of bright moments too.
You probably will not make the same mistakes as I did but chances are you are gonna make some. And that's all fine, as you already know everybody makes mistakes. However it is important to learn from those mistakes as that is what moves you forward and makes you a better leader.