What I Learnt Becoming a Tech Lead
It&#x27;s telling that bad leaders I&#x27;ve worked with exhibit opposite traits from OP&#x27;s list. Off the cuff, they&#x27;ve had tendencies to:<p><pre><code>   - stubbornly devote majority of their time to coding, despite negative feedback of their leadership
   - be consistently unaware of their calendar, to the point of developing a reputation for forgetting commitments
   - insisting on being involved in every meeting, or being noticeably insecure when they weren&#x27;t
   - lack ability to execute on medium or long-term goals or visions
   - being noticeably insecure when they were no longer the most experienced on the team
</code></pre>
There&#x27;s a time frame of forgiveness for some of that, but ultimately some degree of transition must occur for a leader to become effective. Their role, priority, and especially leverage, all change, and require corresponding changes in mindset and execution.<p>Good leaders I&#x27;ve worked for didn&#x27;t just understand that, they embraced it. They also had enough supporting experience, intuition, and team respect to execute well on it. They showed not just acceptance, but perhaps later even a level of mastery, in their new role.<p>Which is all to say, one adapts and grows into an effective leader. And their leadership, in turn, grows into a distinguishing signal for team effectiveness, maybe even team happiness too. B&#x2F;c of the teams I&#x27;ve worked for, I stuck w&#x2F;good ones for longer than I would have expected largely due to positive environments fostered by the leaders at the time. I also left bad leaders earlier than I would have liked, despite having good relations w&#x2F;teammates in general.