Shifting Opinions: How Your Perspective Needs to Evolve as You Grow into Leadership

Introduction

When technologists follow a path into leadership roles, their opinions and concerns should evolve to better serve their organization. In this post I want to discuss how a leader’s opinions must evolve from the concerns of individual contributors and teams to higher level issues for the good of the organization.

The Importance of Opinions at Work

Opinions matter in the workplace, since they often drive more effective ways of working. Whether it relates to tools or ways of working, a diversity of opinions combined with flexibility creates stronger teams. However, as you progress from an individual contributor to a leader, the nature of the opinions you hold and express need to change to better align with your new responsibilities.

The Shift in Focus

As an engineer or individual contributor, your opinions are focused on your day-to-day work life. Things like:

• Technology choices

• Team models

• Ways of working

These opinions are vital because they help create an effective and productive work environment. This changes when you transition into an executive or leadership role, where a critical part of your growth is learning what opinions to let go of.

Instead of team-level concerns, a leader’s opinions need to focus on what organization needs to thrive. Things like:

• Culture

• High level guardrails

• Decision making processes

• Alignment with company strategy

As a technology leader, you will certainly have opinions about technology, but your opinions have a different impact and can unintentionally be taken as explicit direction rather than informed opinion.

When leaders continue to express strong opinions about the day-to-day concerns of individual contributors, it can leave team members feeling unsupported and directionless (which might seem counterintuitive). Instead of empowering team members to make decisions within their realm of expertise, this approach can hinder productivity and stifle innovation.

By shifting focus to culture, guardrails, decision frameworks and strategy leaders create the clarity the whole organization needs to be successful. This is what the organization needs most from a leader, not a decision on what tech stack to use. This approach enables teams to make informed decisions within clear guidelines and easily stay aligned with company goals.

Conclusion

As technologists and engineers transition into leadership roles, it’s essential to recognize the importance of evolving their opinions for the benefit of the organization. In conclusion, by focusing on the bigger picture and empowering ICs and teams to make their own decisions, leaders can create a more effective and sustainable work environment that drives success.