Manage a Tech team as a “servant leader”
At OpenClassrooms, we strongly believe that “good management” drives success. We all have a definition for it. Here is an explanation of ours.
According to popular belief, “the good manager” stereotype has shifted over the last ten years. The role slowly transitioned from “command and control” to “listen, empower and challenge”. Nowadays, as a manager, you’re no longer supposed to be a boss empowered to dictating your team’s work, but to play a specific role within your team which requires a specific mindset without fear, commands and stress: you’re supposed to be a servant leader.
And yet, even if the “servant leadership” concept is quite old (first quoted in the ‘70s, by Robert K. Greenleaf, founder of the eponym movement), it has taken decades for the manager role to evolve to fit this term.
In addition, in an environment overwhelmed by Agile methodologies, it is easy to find yourself in an ambiguous situation: what are you supposed to do, as an engineering manager, part of an autonomous team, which works on tasks planned by Product Managers and where technical ownership belongs to every team member?
I’ve been a developer myself, a Scrum Master, a team leader and a manager. It took me a while to get it right, not saying I am now doing a perfect job but at least I understand what the expectations are from my position and the ways to achieve them. You might get lost in the various methods, movements, advice or resources you can find on the Web because every manager has their own definition, their own management “style”.
Moreover, management is about people. Therefore you won’t find a ready-to-use solution to solve all of your problems. Listen, act, try, fail and learn and you will eventually find yours. Any advice should be adapted to your own issues. But eh, that’s what our job is about, right?
Your mission: why does a Tech manager matter
Nowadays, teams are increasingly autonomous with diluted technical leadership. Therefore why is an engineering manager useful? Because he will focus on specific and critical areas the team is not even looking at, or at least, not specifically. These areas are mandatory to the team’s success and durability and require a dedicated strategy which has to be thought out and well executed.
- Alignment
Team members should work towards the same goal. Not an implicit goal like “building a great product”. It should be something concrete, so they can measure it. They should have a clear mission and path to achieve it. It’s critical that everyone understands it and knows how to contribute. There are two reasons for that. First, alignment will ensure they fit within the company, that they agree and understand the mission. Secondly, and especially in an engineering team, a misalignment, a lack of communication or lack of team players could have a huge impact. Conway’s law tells us something about this:
“Any organization that designs a system will produce a design whose structure is a copy of the organization’s communication structure.” — Conway
In other words, a lack of alignment will lead to a confusing product. You should ensure that everyone has the same concerns to ensure that you build the right product the right way.
2. Engagement
Having everyone on board is key to building high quality products. But “engagement" is a very vague term. It’s not concrete in itself and does not tell us what our drivers of motivation are. There are many theories around motivation and engagement, extrinsic or intrinsic. My favorite one is the self-determination theory from Deci & Ryan, widely popularized by Daniel Pink (former speechwriter for Al Gore in the 90’s), in a book called “Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us”.
Pink states that motivation is mainly intrinsic (meaning it comes from within the individual) and is based on three pillars: Mastery, Autonomy and Purpose. He also states that other reward mechanisms like higher pay or bonuses (more on that later) are resulting in lower performance when it involves cognitive skills. Of course, each individual has his own perception and motivational drivers but when it comes to Tech people, you can be sure it is close to at least one if not all three of these pillars:
- Mastery: the need to be efficient in our daily work, improve our skills and get better and better.
- Autonomy: the need to be self-directed and execute things the way we think is the best.
- Purpose: do something meaningful and corresponding with our values.
These pillars should be your main concerns when you put something in place within your team: does it break one of these motivational sources?
3. Support team personal growth
When it comes to Tech, you can’t make any other choice: train your team and provide them with the best support to improve themselves. It is key to build an up-to-date, secure, robust, modern, maintainable, scalable product with engaged people. They have to grow in order to grow the product and not the opposite. Do not forget about soft skills, they are important too!
Another part of personal growth is to move out of one’s comfort zone. When not being challenged, people naturally tend to stay in their comfort zone. In order to grow, they need to be challenged and try new things. Accomplishing something new is as much rewarding for them as it is for you.
4. Lead continuous improvement and efficiency
There is no perfect workflow or process which fits every team. Measure, try and adapt is the best way to succeed.
Measure what you are doing currently, it is your reference. As Peter Drucker said “If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it”. Then challenge it: change the way you and your team are working and adapting. You will fail at first, or won’t find the most efficient solution. Your role is to avoid staying stuck in such a position. You have to constantly seek new ways of working, gathering/implementing ideas and feedback, getting rid of bottlenecks and thriving in efficiency.
5. Ensure productivity
That’s the purpose of your team. Why you are all here. You should bring value to the company and you, as a manager, are accountable for your team’s delivery. Productivity is not about working fast, it’s about working at a steady and predictable pace, in a way that enables (or even drives) the business. Do not fall into the resource utilization trap, or into doing quick and dirty workarounds constantly. Your job is to build products in a sustainable way. At some points, legacy will backfire.
Productivity is about balancing delivery and sustainability, at the right pace.
The servant leader attitude
Now that the goals are clear, let’s talk about the attitude.
“Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things”. — P. Drucker
Remember that old-fashioned management style is over:
- You shouldn’t micromanage people but empower your team,
- You shouldn’t command but facilitate,
- You shouldn’t create a stressful environment but engage your team.
Communicate clearly and transparently
You are the one who can step back but also focus on details so you are the one with the most context. When you communicate with others, do not forget to express it clearly. Do not hide anything. Integrity is key to building a trusted environment.
Listen and ask questions
Everyone has ideas and feedback. They should be considered in order to build a continuous improvement culture. Be ready to be challenged, be ready to adapt. Impactful ideas come from collective intelligence.
Act as you expect people to
You should act as a model and set an example. If something is useful, find some time for it and do it. Remaining in a pending status could potentially lock the team. Do not leave any situation unhandled. If it requires a difficult conversation, let’s have it. Alternatively, if it requires praise, let’s celebrate it!
Build tools the team is dreaming of
They are experiencing issues and bottlenecks on a daily basis. You are the one able to step back and provide the required context to build process or tool which could fix those issues. Engage them in the design process and don’t force it. If it’s not relevant and useful, it won’t be adopted.
Praise people publicly but challenge them privately
Focus on the results: your success should be promoted, your failures need to be analyzed and actions need to be taken. It’s not about blaming people, it’s about identifying issues and adapting so they do not happen again. Challenge your team directly, never on their personality but on their work (if you want some tips about this, I highly recommend “Radical Candor” by Kim Scott).
You won’t add value by yelling at your team to demonstrate your authority. However, your results will be even more challenged.
Protect the team from stress and interruption
Development requires focus. Tech teams always provide a lot of support to other teams, happy to help on tasks which provide direct impact. Be wary of untracked interruptions because a team could easily fall into a black hole of support and seems to lose its efficiency. Their work should be valued, so avoid any shadow work.
The second aspect of protection is creating a barrier against pressure and stress. You should be able to transform emergency and deadlines into purpose and opportunities to maintain engagement.
In a nutshell
Managing people is not about commands but about goals and attitude. At OpenClassrooms, we deeply believe that servant-style leadership is the best way to achieve this role. Autonomy does not mean letting a teamwork by itself, it’s about creating the condition for the team to be able to work by itself. Being a manager means embracing specific goals: alignment, engagement, growth, efficiency and productivity. Being a servant leader means adopting the right attitude.
