Team lead from the view of a team member

I am currently a software developer. My goal is to get into a team lead position. With this writing I want to share what a team lead should be from my current point of view.

A role model

That is the most important thing as a team lead in my opinion. You are the person everyone in your team looks up to. You represent how a person should act. You get loud at people if they do something bad? Your team will remember that. You come late to meetings? Your team will remember that. You help a team member if it needs you? Your team will remember that. In all you do, keep in mind your team will somehow see it and will adopt it to some degree with some time.

A safe place

Your team should feel comfortable talking to you at all times. Everyone should be fine with telling you when they made a mistake or did something wrong. Don’t make them feel unpleasant or stupid. Mistakes are not the perfect thing to do but we all do them and most of us want to learn of it. If someone does a mistake try to find out why and work on it.

An enabler

Always ask and search for things that hinders your team. Maybe the process isn’t optimal, maybe there are some personal things going on, maybe the used technology is not the right one. It’s your job to find out and try to remove it. You can boost the work your team can get done. You can also lower it.

A guide

Most probably you have team members in different states of their career. You should talk with everyone and know what his or her goals are. Work with them to make it happen. Maybe someone want to be a team lead as well. In this case you can hand over more responsibilities and if such a position gets free, recommend him. Or you have a developer who want to become an architect. In this case you can help him identify what he needs to learn in order to get there. if someone has no goal, try to find one together.

A team lead should work for the team, not the team for the team lead. Your team members are not your auxiliary staff. Help your team, and every single member, improve every day.