HBR categorized them into five competences in their 2016 article, as below.
These are certainly great leadership skills in general. However, in tech industry, I have noticed that there is one particular leadership skills that most people don't think about but highly necessary, during my 20 years of experience.
And here's why this is important:
- Matrix Organizations: Most tech companies adopt matrix organization format to navigate complexities from diverse opinions and ideas. In the matrix organization, 80% of the work is to align the expectations across all cross-functional teams with different stakes. Most of the conflicts in the matrix organization don't get resolved based on analytical thinking or data, as people can find any data or logic that support their own POVs. Rather, leaders need to FACILITATE teams so that everyone can understand each other's POV. Once you make it easier for everyone understand different POVs, they can find the common ground easily and align.
- High Intensity Culture: If you see any job postings from tech companies, these are two qualities they are looking for in common: "Willing to work in a fast-pace" and "Being able to work with high ambiguity". High ambiguity in a fast-paced culture means lots of changes in decisions and processes in a very chaotic way. This results in highly intensive culture for most tech companies, whether it's a 10-people startup or 100,000-people global tech firm. When everyone in the team is running as fast as they can toward a moving target, the team needs a leader who can FACILITATE the team; asking if the target is well defined or more fundamentally WHY they are running to begin with.
Great facilitation skill based on high emotional intelligence enables leaders to make it easier for teams to solve problems. This is the most empowering and sustainable for tech companies and leaders.
