How to Lead in a Room Full of Experts

It worked at first with a good team. Then later I inherited a fragment of another team with some older know-it-all engineers who thought everything modern was garbage and we should be doing everything like they did 25 years ago. I wasted too much time letting them stonewall everything while thinking we’d eventually reach a consensus.

Then at some point you realize you have to put your foot down and pick a direction after they’ve had a chance to state their position.

Your job as a leader isn't necessarily to make the decision, just to be sure that the decision was made.

Taking this approach with skilled people paid to think can easily be interpreted as being dictatorial and often stifles future contributions.

> Take the time to listen to everyone and to form an educated decision. Explain your conclusion once, twice and even thrice.

This implies a rigid hierarchical structure, one lacking collaboration. Again, this approach might work with assembly line workers but won't fly more than once or twice with people paid to solve problems.

> In that case, it's your duty as the leader to play the dictator and impose order.

And it will be soon your duty to find people to backfill those who have better opportunities to pursue.

> If it happens though, don't forget to re-establish trust with your team members and make sure they understand the circumstances that led you to act in that way.

There is no "re-establishing trust with your team" when this form of "leadership" is employed. Once trust is broken, the only employees who remain are those with no better options.

"Okay. Let me know when you are done with that."

The quiet ones may want the yapping voices silenced so progress can be made.

And sometimes the yapping ones get out ahead of their own skis and don't know a graceful way to back down so they're happyish to be closed down, even if they're primed to come back with an "I told you so" if the leader gets it wrong.

Present the decision in terms of its consequences — consequences that fall on you as the leader, not on others. You want to make clear that the accountability for the outcome rest with you and that others are "safe".

What usually happens when I do this is that the team defers to me to make the decision cause they recognize my point.

That way, you preserve alignment and authority without eroding trust, because the team sees it’s not about wielding power, but about owning the consequences no one else should or can carry.

This is the most important line. You shouldnt be afraid to hurt some peoples feelings (though not intentionally and as kindly as you can of course). Absolutely nothing will get done if you want everyone to be happy

Breaking ties is part of the leader’s job.

Of course if every issue requires the leader to break the tie, then perhaps there’s either a management issue, and incentive issue, or people don’t understand the strategy.

The popular vote was going to load us up with little emergencies that were going to slow several divisions down and we ended up talking to the bosses and ignoring the vote.

In trying to smooth this over, I realized that the problem is that the people who would be dealing with the consequences of a decision wanted solution C and everyone else wanted solution A. And I think it’s something worth remembering for future indecisions, that the people with skin in the game need to be able to veto a popular vote. If you don’t want the project to lose momentum.

Generally on a large project you will have a bunch of leads all dealing with different domains, and they will reach quorum on major architectural decisions, particularly cross cutting concerns and interfaces between Conway’s Law modularizations. The boss only needs to break ties when a consensus does not emerge. And I mean NEEDS. Second worst boss I ever had refused to break ties and we had an even number of leads, so it happened half a dozen times. We wasted hours every month venting to each other about what we hated about him and one of the regular attendees just about wanted to murder him for that, and have us help him hide the body.

I don't see much of that.

You think you can just politely work around him -- that's how you get vaccine skeptics dismantling the CDC.

That person is getting an eye roll, because they are just repeating popular phrase that is not even particularly useful.

Seems more a system design failure to me.

The lead:

1: Understands the whole system, but not necessarily every detail.

2: Plans the whole project.

Edit:

Sometimes in the software world, the title is "architect."

This is rarely the "manager," except in organizations that have a hard-on for hierarchy and artificial promotion for "career advancement." Managers are usually concerned with people, schedules, and resources; but don't go very deep into technical issues.

That being said, the lead/manager may fill in for each other when one is on vacation, sick, quits, ect.

The lead's authority also tends to be varied in scope. They could be the lead of the feature, project, repo, team, initiative, or org. Depending on the context, their hierarchy might not always be the same.

So really, a lead is someone that is in or uses leadership within their scope and with others in the same position. Alternatively referred to as "politics".

In this context, they're handing the politics of development issues with the goal of getting features done.

Thanks for sharing your experience.

EDIT:

Removed unnecessary qualification in the last sentence.

0 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership

>Technical leadership in expert environments is less about command and control, and more about connection and context. You're not the conductor trying to play every instrument. You're the one helping the orchestra understand what song they're playing together.

I think that's the money shot.

Some people have decades of analogies of business compared with musical organizations and I'm one of them.

Lots of other analogies too but it's the real thing that I really like to implement. Analogs only go so far.

Now for the commercial chem lab, instrumentation has a similar role to an orchestra and it works pretty good when you think about it.

Different teams like horns or strings for instance encompass various levels of outstanding professional talent and there is natural self-selection to an extent even if there is also fair competition for a "first chair" or lead position on a team. To be "anointed" by the conductor. Ideally to universal praise, but we know no organization is ideal, and it's the leader who has to well-focus enough effort to compensate. Everybody's judging everybody artistically to get an idea if they are bringing to the table what is needed from their role, including the conductor. Pro musicians can realize early when it's not coming together, and lots of fingers can point at a leader, whether it's first chair, conductor, or even "guest conductor" who just pops in as a "stranger" unexpectedly sometimes. Responsibility for leadership deficiency must be acknowledged and accepted before it can be turned into respect.

Some members can play more than one kind of instrument but mostly that's not a requirement. Then there's things like a harp or tympani which if it's even there you won't see more than one player, and they may step in from another role and/or instrument to only do it for a few minutes. Or they may just stand by silently until needed, either way can work, conductor's choice.

Any doubt in the leader's ability should have a fair way to overcome, so the truly desired hierarchy can function the way it's supposed to. People know when that's not happening.

Now this is technical too not just art.

Sometimes the best route forward is for the lead to demonstrate their own technical proficiency a little bit on their chosen traditional instrument. This can make all the difference, and it doesn't have to reach the level of somebody who has actually been rehearsing every day like the rest of them, just the clear sign of a well-practiced equivalent. Not even the same material. In person it just has to demonstrate inspiring, exemplary competence, which combined with the natural leadership qualities well-received by the group, puts it over the top in respect earned, the way it works best.

This only needs to be done infrequently, but sometimes regularly. It can almost be like an OK to the conductor, please get back to the podium and don't show us how to do it in the pit, we know you had the instrument talent if you need it, we won't complain so easy when we don't think the conductor is not perfect next time either. When people need to shut up and get back to their rat-killin' sometimes the only way to do it is with respect that is earned, and it really works compared to when it is ordained or thoughtlessly enforced.

If every fiddle player has their nose to the grindstone every day, that's what's expected because that's the everyday technical requirement it takes to earn their place. And pull their weight like they're supposed to do.

If the ultimate leader is not putting in equal everyday effort just plain doing whatever it takes to earn legitimate respect, it will show. They're the only one that doesn't have their hands full rehearing all the time, so talented people naturally expect them to be making the most of it. Otherwise people begin to wonder if a leader is really technically qualified to begin with, and the doubt can be equally bad whether it is true or not.

Now the orchestra can seem sophisticated compared to the hard rockers and country & western bands encountered more often, some of whom can have somewhat "redneck" tendencies. Either way, my advice to some executives who think they're so cool is "don't try to be a bandleader". There's drummers and bass players who will support every thing you do from back there, but if you fail to showcase their talent they will easily become disgruntled, and if you're a complete failure likely to rip you a new one.

Even if it's not a jazz band, if you're going to herd cats, you need to be a cat yourself, a badger or a skunk won't fool everybody.