The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change

by Camille Fournier

Your productivity is now less important than the productivity of the whole team. Often, this means that you pay the price of communication overhead. Instead of having every team member sit in a meeting, you represent the team, communicate their needs, and bring information from that meeting back to the team. If one universal talent separates successful leaders from the pack, it’s communication skills. Successful leaders write well, they read carefully, and they can get up in front of a group and speak. They pay attention in meetings and are constantly testing the limits of their knowledge and the knowledge of the team. Now is a great time to practice your writing and speaking skills. Write design documents and get feedback on them from better writers. Write blog posts for your tech blog or your personal blog. Speak in team meetings, speak at meetups, and get practice standing up in front of an audience. Don’t forget to listen during all of this communication. Give others a chance to speak, and hear what they say. Practice repeating things back to people to ensure you understand them. Learn how to hear what someone says and rephrase it in your own words. If you aren’t a good note taker, you may need to become one. It doesn’t matter whether you choose to dive deep into technology, or become a manager — if you can’t communicate and listen to what other people are saying, your career growth from this point on will suffer.