013. Servant Leadership

The secret to building high-performing software development teams.

Today, we're talking about one of the most important leadership philosophies out there: Servant Leadership.

The best leaders are helpers

As technical leaders in software development, it's easy to get caught up in the day-to-day tasks of managing teams, setting deadlines, and making sure projects are on track. But as a servant leader, your focus should be on helping your team achieve their goals.

This means taking a step back and looking at how you can best support your team. Do they need more resources, better communication, or more time to complete their tasks? Whatever it is, your job is to make sure they have what they need to succeed.

Facilitate greatness, or get out of the way

Another key tenet of servant leadership is facilitating greatness. As a leader, your job is not to micromanage your team, but to create an environment where they can thrive.

This means trusting your team members to do their jobs and empowering them to make decisions. It also means removing any obstacles that might be standing in their way. This means taking a proactive approach to identifying and addressing issues before they become bigger problems. If your team can't work, you can't work.

Here are some concrete examples of how you can remove obstacles for your team: