1) Learn as much about the people on your team as you can. That can be sometimes hard while at work, so I end up going out to lunch with them or occasionally grab a beer afterwards.<p>2) While at lunch or after work, my team and I end up talking about random stuff, but it pays off when you can sense if someone is having a bad day&#x2F;week or is stuck on a particular issue. Also helps to build mutual trust with your team and keeps the communication lines more open.<p>3) It&#x27;s hard to sometimes tell how well you&#x27;re doing as a technical lead, but one way I do it is by how often people come to me for help to things that can&#x27;t easily be Googled. If developers are seeking out your help, they trust you and consider you reliable source of help.<p>4) If it comes down to doing more work or helping your team. Always pick your team. Helping them will likely be more productive overall than any amount of additional work you take on yourself.<p>5) Every developer is different. Recognize that when communicating with them and approach each differently. A true tech lead isn&#x27;t a managing position, it&#x27;s a mentoring&#x2F;leadership role while still being a developer.<p>6) Be concise. Your team needs help, but they have work to do. Save the long explanations for later. That doesn&#x27;t mean you should avoid the &quot;why&quot; in your responses, just don&#x27;t make your answers a monologue.<p>7) If asked by a team member why you think a particular approach or solution is correct, give them an explanation. I always feel if I can&#x27;t explain a particular subject, then I don&#x27;t really know it that well and may be incorrect.<p>8) You don&#x27;t always have to be correct. Admitting you aren&#x27;t when you can&#x27;t explain something reflects better than all other responses you could give your team.<p>9) Making yourself available to your team for assistance is also a must as already mentioned. Everyone communicates differently, so adjust to your team as much as possible.<p>10) Don&#x27;t deter someone outright from pursuing a potential solution, even if you&#x27;re pretty certain it won&#x27;t work. Instead saying no, apply some rubber duck debugging[1] and talk them through their idea aloud. If all goes well, they&#x27;ll either realize it&#x27;s not feasible and learn the value of communication or they&#x27;ll convince you that it will likely work. If they win me over, I&#x27;ll try to help them devise a way to small way to test their idea further.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Rubber_duck_debugging" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Rubber_duck_debugging</a>