Crucial Management Mistakes to Avoid: A Guide for Leaders

In the article “Five mistakes you better not do as a people manager”, I shared my thoughts on the top five mistakes that people managers should avoid. I listed them as follows:

1. Lose your negative emotions in front of the team

2. Categorize employees as suitable or not

3. Neglect people's concerns

4. Put individual needs ahead of the team's needs

5. Evangelize your own culture in contrast with the company's culture

In this article, I will add three more mistakes that leaders and managers of teams and departments should avoid.?

As a leader and manager of engineering teams, you should NOT make:

1. The Mistake of Setting Up Teams Around Short-Term Goals

There are tactical decisions and strategic decisions. Forming your team setup is a strategic decision while addressing short-term goals and issues is a tactical decision. Building teams takes time and is costly in terms of people's energy and performance during team development and adjustment. It is very inefficient and unsustainable for the organization to change the structure every 3-6 months to address short-term issues. The organizational setup of the teams should follow the vision and strategy of the organization and serve as a tool to achieve them.

2. The Mistake of Building a Culture of Belonging, Instead of Creating Silos

In the article “Sense of belonging through tribal leadership”, I discuss tribal leadership and the importance of a sense of belonging for successful teams. One pitfall when drawing a visual diagram of the organizational setup and distributing engineers in teams is the false feeling of “I belong to my team, and my team only.” However, it is important to constantly remind people that the team is a unit of a bigger team - a department, which is a unit of a bigger team - the company. In this sense, team goals sometimes need to be compromised in favor of the next-level team. Building the feeling of living in a bubble as silos is almost unavoidable, from my experience, but should be detected as early as possible and addressed in many different ways - individual meetings, team meetings, department meetings, goals, and department-wide ceremonies. You should find ways to spark empathy between different teams and individuals, no matter which sub-team they are assigned to.

3. The Mistake of Not Delegating

You might not think of yourself as a control freak, but especially if you’re a new manager, you might find it hard to transition some of your previous workload to your team. Lack of delegation not only burdens you with an overwhelming workload but also takes growth opportunities away from your team members. Trust in your team's abilities, assign them tasks accordingly, and watch them flourish. You have enough responsibilities as a people leader; if you don’t delegate well, you’ll hurt your development in your role as well as stifle your team’s ability to grow and develop in their roles.

4. The Mistake of Not Fostering Psychological Safety

Engineering (and not only) is creative work. This means that people need a safe space to experiment, express opinions, share feedback, make mistakes, and learn from them. This is why psychological safety is crucial for every team and department. As a manager, you should build this. If you neglect this important aspect of team dynamics, you risk having suppressed people who do not feel comfortable speaking up, one or two stronger and more vocal people dominating, a culture of finger-pointing and blaming, and an avoidance of any experimentation. This does not mean the team should not take accountability for their actions and commitments, but it should be done constructively.

5. The Mistake of Not Celebrating Success and Achievements

Like small children, teams and individuals need to feel appreciated and recognized when they succeed and achieve their goals. These might be small things like completing small features, having efficient meetings, reaching agreements after constructive discussions, or bigger achievements such as major releases and meeting annual goals. In all of these cases, as a manager and leader, you should find a way to acknowledge their success and celebrate it somehow. This might be through a pat on the shoulder, giving kudos cards, a “thank you” speech or something more significant like a lunch or dinner.

In these two articles, I am touching on ten possible mistakes that managers can make. I am sure there are more. This job is hard, although many people who have never tried it think it is the easiest one in the world. Remember that your mistakes have a bigger impact than a bug in the code, which can be fixed by a rollback or a hotfix in production. They impact people's morale, productivity, and overall atmosphere in your teams.