What are the best ways to demonstrate leadership skills in game development?

You can have decades of experience under your belt but if you can’t communicate respectfully and connect with your team you may as well hang it up.

Enter interactions with the belief that everyone is trying to do their best work and that no one is perfect so mistakes will be made. By doing this you'll come to every interaction with a positive mindset, not a blame mindset, and be able to work through issues with respect and avoid blame-traps. There are outliers of course and you need to keep your eyes open to this.

Effective communication is key to every team success. Let's focus on brevity (keeping messages concise), clarity (making our point easily understood), and context (ensuring relevance). Most importantly, keep our shared vision at the center of all interactions.

True leadership involves seizing opportunities without hesitation. Taking ownership means actively seeking ways to contribute, innovate, and lead the team toward success. One thing I've found helpful is fostering a culture where mistakes are viewed as learning opportunities. It's akin to respawning in a game – admitting errors, learning from them, and iterating on solutions contribute to individual and team growth.

Raising your hand and saying "I'll do it" is what separate you as a leader from the rest. It also sends such a strong signal to everyone else who you are and what you are willing to do. And it builds for a strong culture.

For most of us in this industry collaboration is the easy part, delegation less so. I find that when developers transition from smaller, more niche studios to roles at larger studios, there is a great unwillingness to let go of all the hats they have worked so hard to wear and trade generalist skillsets for more focused roles. The switch can lead to feelings of disconnection from the project as a whole and a narrowing of one’s personal contribution. This is when collaboration is most important. Building trust with peers and reports and providing an open platform for shared creativity can make a team of dozens feel like a team of twelve. If you can strike the right balance, delegation feels as natural as collaboration always has.

I believe in understanding your team dynamic, all their strengths, all their weaknesses. If you know these, you'll know what people love to do and what they don't enjoy. Find out what they're passionate about and let them succeed while giving them room to fail. Take personal accountability for those unexpected failures that affect the project and celebrate successes as a team so that you can develop a culture that isn't afraid to learn and take risks. Finally, be patient even when it seems impossible. You've got the big picture, they often don't. Take the time to explain the who, what and why up front and you'll create a lot of trust in the long run.

If you always delegate easy tasks to juniors and complex to seniors, juniors will never learn and seniors will always burn. Try vice versa…sometimes. Seniors will quickly complete easy tasks and have time to mentor juniors through complex tasks. Delegating is easy, delegating and supervising makes a leader.

Take bets, learn quick, and pivot. If you aren’t innovating and adjusting your company as needed, you will eventually fall behind. Encouraging a culture of taking responsible risks that doesn’t punish failure, but rather highlights these failures to encourage company-wide learning will drive your company to new heights.

Never forget that it is your people who make everything possible. As leaders, it is our job to develop, inspire, and empower the brilliance of our teams. Too often we put people in charge who don’t have the skills to lead, and then provide no training, and so they fall back on control. Control can achieve short term results at the cost of longterm sustainability and success. As leaders, if we take care of our people and chart smart vision and strategy that is aligned with our values, they will take care of the rest.

This to me is the best part of my job! I love being asked “hey is it possible to do XYZ?” In my experience having tenacity and willingness to explore new frontiers and ideas vs being closed minded and “sticking with what works” sets the tone for team creativity and exploration. That trust allows team members to feel comfortable with failing. Hey we tried something new - it may have not worked this time, but maybe it will for the next game. Embrace trying things without fear of failure. Building a strong trusting team that is engaged by creative partners to help innovate their “next big idea” is the name of the whole game. Be kind, make mistakes, and be willing to learn as much as possible. That’s game development leadership IMO

Learning never stops. Continuos learning and then applying that learning to your work is what is gonna make one better in whatever they do. My fundamental rule for any of my team members is that 90% of the times I assing them the work that challenges them to learn something new or at the very least, lets them re-learn something old in a better way. Now this does not mean you should try to re-invent the wheel, but you can always make it more sustainable to more speed ;)

Embracing continuous learning in game development is key. Whether diving into white papers for programming or fostering a team culture that views mistakes as opportunities, it's about having a growth mindset. Open communication and sharing learning experiences build a resilient and innovative team, is crucial in the dynamic game production landscape.

Focus on the people. Empower them and give them space to do what they've been hired to do. No game is worth burnout. Also, understand that quality takes time, but it's worth it. There's only one chance to make the best impression with your title.

Remember that everyone on the team is better than you at this work. That's why they're doing it and you're 'leading'. So get out of their way and just be there to foster and support communication and collaboration. P.S. As the "sounding board", you should be the quietest person in the room.