[FROM THE ARCHIVES] Build A Team That Ships

I’ve been “officially” leading teams for around 4 years now. That said, I’ve really been leading teams my entire life to some capacity. As a teenager, we (my cousin and I) led a group of skateboarders but rather than the normal path you’d expect we ended up with merch, websites, movies, and a real-world skate shop opened. Seriously, there was a ribbon-cutting. In my time on Active Duty in the U.S. Army, amazing examples of leadership were all around me. Fast forward to today and I lead engineering teams as an Engineering Manager at Linode.

I’d like to start with a caveat of sorts. Self-management (to me) is a misnomer, you have to support your team while also empowering them to move freely within the scope of priority and outside of it.

Here’s what I do:

• Team size based on effort. There can be teams inside of a management structure of teams.

• Try new approaches to “the process”. Nothing is an absolute, people over process.

• Do what works for the team based on learning over time.

• If you commit as a team to an effort, that comes first.

• Everything outside of the effort is fair game until it slows the committed work above.

• Team members want to make things better for peers, let them.

• One person projects are a thing.

Management Requirements

• Listen to your team.

• If you say you’re going to do something, do it.

• Don’t commit if it’s questionable that you’ll execute.

• Take notes.

• Ask questions, but don’t think you have to drive everything ever.

• Accept failure and act on what you’ve learned from it.

• Collaborate to safely remove barriers that prevent shipping.

Ship it.

Disclaimer thing: These are my opinions and not representative of Linode or the opinions of Linode directly.