Seven Things to Avoid If You Want to Lead a Technical Team
May 17, 2023Reaching a leadership position takes more than technical competence. It also requires avoiding a handful of specific, common missteps along the way.
Securing a leadership role generally comes down to a consistent set of qualities: a can-do attitude, being a genuine team player, performing core responsibilities to a high standard, initiating valuable work, managing team performance effectively, and achieving results with the resources available. Alongside those qualities, there are specific behaviours worth actively avoiding.
- Underestimating Your Own Perspective
For naturally introverted or quieter professionals, it's easy to hold back a unique point of view. Clear communication doesn't require being the loudest voice in the room. It requires making sure a valuable perspective actually gets heard.
- Talking Without Getting to the Point
For more naturally expressive communicators, the opposite risk applies: talking around a point rather than to it. Clear, concise communication, organised around a few key points, tends to land far better than a longer, less focused explanation.
- Struggling to Receive Feedback Well
Feedback, particularly the difficult kind, takes courage to give. Dwelling on it defensively, rather than engaging with it, undermines the trust that makes feedback useful in the first place. Respecting the perspective behind it, and asking how to improve, demonstrates far more leadership than resisting it does.
- Avoiding Ownership of Mistakes
Taking ownership isn't about absorbing blame for others' errors. It's about owning your own work and your team's outcomes, admitting when something has gone wrong, and working visibly to fix and improve it.
- Feeling Threatened by Competition for the Role
It's natural to feel unsettled when others are visibly competing for the same position. Letting that insecurity stall your own contribution is counterproductive. The qualities that led to the current position are still genuine assets, and if that insecurity persists, it may be worth considering whether a different challenge is the better move.
- Staying Quiet About Your Ambition
Wanting a role isn't something to leave unspoken. Demonstrating genuine skill, reliability, and readiness, while remaining authentic rather than performative, keeps you visible for the right opportunities. Direct, confident communication about interest in a role is a legitimate and useful signal to a decision-maker.
- Making It About Yourself, Not the Team
Effective leadership centres on the team's success, not individual visibility. Focusing on helping a team reach its potential, rather than personal recognition, is what actually builds the outcomes that make a leader worth following.
Final Thoughts
These seven points aren't exhaustive, but they're a strong starting point. Leadership, at its core, is about creating genuine value and positive impact, for a team and the people within it, not simply securing the title.
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