Leadership might be one of the interesting topics in the IT industry where having smart leaders can make a lot of difference. Leader’s decisions in the IT industry not only impact on the employees but also this would impact on the products are being produced and therefore the end-users will be impacted as well. This is how leadership in this area is quite critical and as the software industry is moving forward with advanced technologies, leadership is developing to get adapted to the new generations of engineers and new ways of working.

Leader Story

One day I got a message from one of the developers that something in design for the migration is not right. I did not know anything about the context that’s why I scheduled a quick call for the day after to understand it. The day after when I understood the context of the issue, I also noticed that developer has a lot of experience with the context and he is also passionate about implementing the new solution for that issue. I was listening to his complaints and he was emphasizing that he has been shouting at people that they are not right about the approach they take for this issue. This situation immediately reminded me many years ago when I was complaining all the time without doing anything. Even though I was right, no one was listening or understanding what I was saying.

One second I just look at him and said: ok I understand the situation you are talking about. Now my question is what did you do so far besides telling this to the team? He turned to my face and said: nothing! I just smiled and told him: Can I ask you to create a short proposal? you would explain all details of this issue and your solution in the proposal. Additionally, I do think that it is good if you schedule a session and demo your solution for the team. Then everyone can understand his and we probably will decide as a team to do it this way. I saw him smiled while he was saying: “yes I can do that”. He left the conversation so motivated and I found that I tackled one of the challenges we had. So it was a win, win a conversation. 

Do not be Reactive

Sometimes rather than doing something as a smart leader, you should be more careful about things you should not do. For example, one thing is how to avoid demotivating people where a person is a eligible person for the job. One skill for smart leaders is to find out who is good for what. Surprisingly before you need to do any effort for this, they will tell you themselves. If you give them space to do what they are good at it and they love it. You need to direct them to focus on what they can do and do it as well as they can. Every team member has a different interest. As a result, you need to find out how you can make a balance between people’s motivations and responsibilities.

Golden Advice For Leaders

One of the best ever things is to create an environment in which people feel comfortable with you. People only share things with you, if they trust you. So you need to make that trust. By doing this, you will be able to create a great relationship with team members, you get to know everything and become aware of things. Therefore you act accordingly and make wise decisions. I guess you would be seen as a smart leader as well!