People
Introduction#
As a senior engineer, you will probably have laid some foundations for people leadership. You are likely to have developed views on how a team should work, but not yet mastered how to bring a team with you in adopting them. You may be good at building consensus on technical decisions, but less practised at resolving broader differences, such as competing priorities or clashing working styles. And you may have mentored early-career engineers, but not yet experienced ones, who need a quite different approach. These are foundations to build on, and the guidance in this section helps you do so.
Other aspects of the role are likely to be new altogether, such as setting and tracking objectives, giving meaningful feedback, and dealing with performance issues.
When working with people, and especially when leading people, it is essential to understand the natural variation in intrinsic personality types and neurology, as well as possible mental wellbeing issues and even the person’s varying moods on any particular day.
Dealing with things like this can feel unfamiliar and uncomfortable, and you may even doubt your ability to ever get to grips with it — or to feel comfortable doing so. But with practice and experience, it becomes easier and over time many come to see these skills as a crucial part of their success.
Leadership, not just management#
Most of this section applies whether or not you have line management responsibility. One-to-ones, feedback, and delegation are leadership skills rather than management ones, and good Tech Leads use them with the people they lead, whether or not they formally manage them.
Performance improvement is the main exception, because a formal plan is usually run by the line manager. Even so, a Tech Lead often sees a performance issue first, and is well placed to support both the individual and their manager. The page also covers what to do if you are ever the subject of a performance improvement plan yourself.
What good people leadership looks like#
The pages in this section share some common themes.
- Understand before you act. Behaviour that looks like a problem often has a cause you can’t see. Before addressing a performance concern, seek first to understand. In one-to-ones, ask open questions and do most of the listening. To find out what helps someone work at their best, ask them.
- Help people grow rather than solving things for them. Feedback is grounded in a growth mindset, the belief that people can change through effort. Delegating real responsibility is one of the most effective development experiences there is. In one-to-ones, help people solve problems themselves rather than taking them away.
- Be specific. Vague intentions produce vague results. Feedback should be specific, delegation needs clear objectives and guardrails, and performance improvement depends on well-defined goals.
- Little and often. Regular, small conversations prevent problems from building up. Hold one-to-ones at least fortnightly and protect the slot, give immediate feedback rather than saving it up, and agree checkpoints on delegated work.
Underpinning all of these is compassion. The people you lead are more likely to be open with you, take on challenges, and stay in the team when they can see you have their interests at heart.
In this section#
- One-to-ones explains how to run regular, private conversations that focus on the person rather than the work, and why the meeting belongs to them rather than to you.
- Delegation covers why to delegate, who to delegate to, and how to hand over work with clear objectives, guardrails, and a shared understanding.
- Feedback presents techniques for giving feedback with compassion that is specific and balanced, and for receiving it well.
- Performance improvement explains how to support someone through a performance improvement plan, from understanding the cause to setting goals and structuring the process.
- Neurodiversity introduces neurodevelopmental differences such as autism, ADHD, and dyslexia, and how to work effectively with neurodivergent colleagues.