Tech Leadership summary

At its core, leadership is all about your people. The connection you build with each team member determines whether they’ll give their best or just go through the motions. That connection comes down to four elements that might sound simple, but take deliberate practice to get right.

The first element is time. One-on-one conversations create bonds that no group meeting can replicate. When you sit down with someone individually, you signal that they matter. Then comes attention. Multitasking during conversations – checking your phone, glancing at emails – reads as disrespect even when you don’t mean it that way. Your team members notice when you’re fully present and when you’re not.

After World War II, returning military personnel brought command-and-control leadership into the workforce, particularly in manufacturing. This style focused squarely on productivity and hitting targets. But command-and-control didn’t translate well to a new, educated workforce in the service sector who lacked military experience. They needed a different type of leadership altogether – one that encouraged creativity, innovation, and deep thinking. This is what collaborative leadership does.

Collaborative leadership safeguards thinking and making mistakes. It facilitates interaction and encourages participation by all team members. Consider Google’s Mountain View campus: it spans 1.1 million square feet, yet everyone sits within a 2.5-minute walk of each other. This deliberate design encourages casual meetings and exchanges across departments. Everyone is encouraged to share ideas and collaborate.

Strategy defines your company’s long-term direction and the plan to get there. Strategic leadership is about putting that plan into action right now, with your team. It’s less about drafting the company’s five-year budget goals, and more about how you’re showing up.

The foundation of strategic leadership is ownership. Treat your company’s resources and customers as if they were your own. When this happens, something shifts. You start taking initiative and being accountable without anyone asking. You naturally look for ways to grow and preserve what you own, because it matters to you personally.

Everything you’ve learned about leadership means nothing if you don’t execute. After all, ideas without action are just daydreams. So let’s talk about how to actually get things done.

You’ve probably heard of SMART goals – specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely. But there’s another framework dominating tech: OKRs, which stands for objectives and key results. Netflix, Google, Meta, and Spotify all run on OKRs to set, and reach, ambitious targets.