Tag “Leadership”

Robin Bate Boerop's Blog

Robin Bate Boerop's blog about DevOps and software team leadership.

Mission Defines Success

The purpose of a software team is to complete a mission. If you are a software team leader, your success is defined by the accomplishment of that mission; you must own the result 100%.

Motivating Psychological Safety

Why software team leaders should create psychologically safe work environments.

Your Dev Team Needs A Mission

Teams exist to complete a mission. If you are a software team leader, you must ensure that the team's mission is well defined and clearly communicated. Without a clear mission, your team’s ability to make decisions is grossly impeded, as is your ability to set goals and measure progress.

Tip: Repeat Yourself Often

A tip for software team leaders: to communicate clearly and to lead effectively, repeat yourself often.

Toxic Developers Destroy Productivity

If you are the leader of a software team, then you have heard of the legendary 10x developer - the superstar worker. To improve your team's productivity, learn this: replacing an average worker with a superstar worker is not nearly as effective as removing a toxic worker. It’s not even close. Toxic workers destroy productivity.

Tip: Stop Solving Your Team's Problems

If you lead a software team, and a team member has a problem, you may be tempted to solve it. Maybe you shouldn’t. This is an opportunity for more than a solved problem.

Tip: They Don't Have to Like You

Are you a software leader worried that the team members don’t like you? You can stop worrying. They don’t have to like you. They just have to trust you.

Tip: Coaching Means Giving Less Advice

A tip for software team leaders: coaching well means giving less advice.

Tip: Negotiate Achievable Goals

Leaders must ensure that the software team's goals are achievable.

Tip: Routinely Develop Your Influence

On a software team, leaders should make the development of social influence routine.

Employees Are More Important Than Customers and Investors

Employee engagement is more important than your customers, and more important than your investors. This article explains why.

Leadership References

A list of useful references on the concept of leadership.

Essential Techniques for Leading Software Teams in the Work From Home Era

Learn essential leadership techniques for remote work.

On Trust

This is a primer on the concept of trust for software teams.

Employee Engagement for Software Teams

A primer on employee engagement for new leaders.

Questions for Measuring Software Team Engagement

Suggestions for choice of questions and question phrasing for measuring software team engagement.

Leadership for Software Teams

A primer on the concept of leadership.

Motivating Engagement

Why care about employee engagement on software teams?"

Software Team Leadership Book

Robin Bate Boerop's book: Software Team Leadership.