8 things to keep in mind for a fresh leader

When I become a manager I was a bit scared about what I need to do and what others would expect from me.

But at the same time I was very confident on the kind of leader I wanted to be and I would never accept turn my back on this. Today I see that this was one of the best decisions I make. So, in order to never forget these things I consider essential, I decided to write this in order to help me on future and maybe other fresh leaders

Care about your team

This is the must have. Look for each person of your team and make the exercise of thinking where YOU can/should improve in order to help this person grow on their career. Understand the moment of each one

Care about company goals

At the end of the day everyone want to be part of a winning team. We want to write a history of success. Always bring for your team the company goals and try to make it close to the tasks that they’re doing. Sometimes it’s not easy but this creates the perfect moment to make an exercise with your team to learn how to prioritise the tasks that will have the biggest impact on the company goals

Know how to do your team job

Be close to your team daily basis. Do code reviews, pair programmings, tech talks and write code (whenever you can). I have no doubt that this is one of the best way to teach them and, besides that, this will create an atmosphere of confidence between you and the team

Hire Juniors/Interns

Trust me, you won’t regret on this. Find the junior that you need, hire and mentor him. Be the leader that you need when you were on his position (be very careful in your selection)

Seek for opportunities (even when it seems there’s not one)

Always craft for nice opportunities. For your squad, for you and for each one on you team. Bad and unexpected things will happen… you will lost a senior developer, some incident on production environments, a co-worker will be fired, whatever. You can cry or you can try to find opportunities on this to grow

always be honest and, please, never try to hide the bad aspect of what happened

Be fare. Be transparent

You ~should not be~ are not working with kids. The one’s that are working with you are smart adults, don’t try to hide things from them. The more transparent you are the more confidence you will have

Have your team confidence

This is a consequence of some of the other things above… if you care about him (personal and professional), you are fare, transparent, put your effort to be part of his growth and support their daily basis activities you will have his confidence, and even more, you will become friends (at least work friends)

Give “bad” feedbacks ~also~

This doesn’t need too much description. Be honest, talk what you feel and listen. Your lead will be very grateful. He MUST know where he needs to improve

Conclusion

Never stop studying and care about you leads and company growth.