In today's business world, it can feel like everything is software, and therefore, every company is a software company. In-house development of high-tech platforms for both internal and customer-facing use is now a common practice. Companies that excel at this kind of development can use it as a differentiator, driving their success with industry-leading digital products and services.
Therein lies a new challenge: The teams responsible for that highly technical work can differ from more standard business units in terms of their members' motivation and work styles, calling for a new type of management.
Technical leadership is a specific skill set you can add to your resume, one that can set you apart as an executive as companies become ever more dependent on the performance of their tech-focused groups.
See more: Watch a recent webinar on the nature of technical leadership.
What is technical leadership, and how is it unique?
In the abstract, becoming a successful technical leader is the same as mastering more general management. Great technical leaders rely on strategic thinking and project management acumen just as much as business leaders do. It's still your job to keep people motivated and engaged, encouraging higher levels of performance and retaining top contributors to the team.
The differences come from the nature of the work and the personality profiles of many of the workers who excel in technical roles. From a strong desire for independence and autonomy to a desire to base work on individual curiosity, certain traits surface more often in tech professionals than others.
As MIT Sloan Executive Education Senior Lecturer Bruce Cameron, director of the System Architecture Group, stated in a recent webinar, the difference can come down to intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Tech pros who are extrinsically motivated may thrive on competition and personal achievement in ways that go further than their colleagues.
Archetypes that are prominent in technical work stretch from the "10x engineer" who can single-handedly provide 10 times the production of an average coder to a hardcore data scientist or a tech visionary focused on big ideas. Managing people who conform to these work styles calls for a distinct approach.
Effective technical leaders don't necessarily have encyclopedic technical knowledge themselves. Rather, they come to their roles with effective leadership expertise and the ability to get the most out of ambitious professionals with deep technical expertise. This is a people leadership challenge, not a question of memorizing technological concepts.
The makings of an effective tech leader
Becoming the kind of manager that can effectively direct a team of high-performing tech workers isn't a one-size-fits-all process, but there are some rules of thumb that can guide you in this type of position. Leadership practices that can bring technically focused employees together as part of a cohesive team include:
- Creating an innovative, explorative team culture that welcomes new ideas rather than rote adherence to established practices.
- Developing a management strategy that reflects tech workers' favored incentives.
- Managing conflict and resolving disputes, potentially involving workers who have different work styles, not just when compared to business units, but also within their own teams.
- Setting goals and achievement frameworks that make sense within a tech development context.
- Taking on a data-driven management style that deals with objective performance metrics in key areas.
- Building departmental practices around tech-friendly concepts like avoiding rework.
These priorities don't take the place of standard best practices of people management and motivation. Rather, they're additive, acting as an extra set of concepts you can draw on to be a more effective executive within a modern, tech-driven organization.
Read more: Learn more about modern management styles through Bruce Cameron's System Architecture.
Why today's companies need excellent technical leadership
Your organization likely needs tech leadership, no matter its size or industry. This is true because so much value resides in technology development. An increasing number of internal tasks call for the attention of technically savvy personnel.
Trends driving the increased need for technological skills within companies of all kinds include:
- The widespread use of cloud computing to provide flexible and location-agnostic computing resources.
- Development of proprietary applications, serving both internal audiences and customers.
- The move toward releasing and updating platforms and services rather than discrete products.
- Mainstream adoption of DevOps practices and the combination of development and operations teams into more efficient hybrid groups.
- An overarching need for data security, with a focus on personally identifiable information belonging to customers and employees.
Excellent technical leadership helps companies implement these practices within their structures — and the absence of that kind of management comes with consequences. There are current examples of both good and bad technical leadership ability in action, all with lessons to teach.
Judging by their outcomes and employees' own responses to "Best Place to Work” surveys, Cameron cites a few companies as examples of positive tech leadership in action:
- Boston Dynamics
- Eli Lilly
- Apple
- SpaceX
- BMW
- McLaren
- NVIDIA
- ServiceNow
- MathWorks
- VMware.
- Adobe
- Microsoft
He also cited a negative example. Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer that has seen multiple damaging headlines in recent years, has reportedly been hampered by sub-optimal organization within its engineering teams.
Beyond general performance, there are also specific patterns worth understanding and improving. For instance, Cameron pointed to well-known issues with retaining female employees in technical roles. He highlighted study results that indicated technical leader failures: Stress and burnout were the joint top reasons why women leave technical jobs, followed by a desire to pursue a different passion, need for work-life balance, and chafing at a lack of diversity.
Placing your own company in the positive column for tech leadership can be a differentiator in terms of performance and competitiveness. Fortunately, there are formalized ways to learn the specific abilities that make up a tech leadership skill set.
Read more: Discover how GenAI is interacting with people management.
How executive education builds technical leadership skills
Learning to lead a technological team can become a key piece of your development as a leader. MIT Sloan Executive Education courses, such as Leading Technical Professionals and Teams, allow you to directly engage with specifically tech-focused best practices.
The executive education course focuses on concepts that often come up for today's tech leaders, including:
- Managing international teams and driving productive cross-border collaboration.
- Designing roles specifically tailored for full-time remote work.
- Creating incentives that appeal to high performers within technological teams.
- Accounting for diverse work styles and motivating many kinds of employees.
- Mentoring and rewarding tech workers.
Participants learn directly from subject matter experts like Cameron and his fellow professor, Nelson P. Repenning. Instruction comes from these professors' insightful lectures as well as more hands-on work, like case study reviews. By delving into real-world examples of technical leadership gone right and wrong, you can see how the lessons apply to your own company's immediate needs and future direction.
Read more: See how MIT Sloan Executive Education's courses and certificate programs help leaders develop their skill sets.
Deepen your technical leadership skills
Considering the proliferation of technical teams across industries and around the world, it's clear how you can put tech leadership ability to practical use. You can pursue executive education to drive organizational success in your current position as a successful technical leader, or to build an executive resume that will help you search for a new management position within your field.
Leading Technical Professionals and Teams is an intensive, two-day in-person session that provides a long list of insights you can carry into your professional life. Technology and business leadership are becoming more intertwined rather than less, so becoming a specialist in this aspect of management is a way to prepare for what's next.
Enroll in Leading Technical Professionals and Teams to learn technical leadership skills from connected, knowledgeable experts.