The Mistakes That Made Me a Low-Performing Leader (and How You Can Avoid Them)
I never expected to make big mistakes. I am confident, driven, and diligent in learning. I seek feedback regularly and make improvements.
However, as a new manager, I didn’t have a lot of opportunity switching between different teams. I also underestimated the gap between each organization and team. When I made one of my first switches, I thought that patterns that worked for one team would work effectively for another.
The truth is: Without a proper onboarding plan, it could be a disaster.
Today, let me share this story and explain how you can do better than I did.
The Story
An Exciting New Project
The story started when I moved to a new company as an Engineering Manager. I was excited, confident, and could not wait to make a change.
And then one big development project came in. The scale was huge. It was a brand new product line on top of the existing system. We had to work together with 20 other teams.
“It is my time to shine 🤩!” I thought. I could not wait to deliver it and demonstrate my superior leadership skills.
Things Went South Quickly…
Actually, I was not very resourceful, and that was a major problem.
My mission was to figure out the scale, create a plan, and move it forward. The business only knew that it has great potential, but no one knew technically how much time it would take.
There were many questions that did not have clear answers. I often got stuck and was not sure what to do. My tunnel vision limited me to only go for easy options, and they didn’t create noticeable impact.
A few weeks went by and there was not much progress. Both my manager and my team were not too happy. All they could see were unclear release timeline & milestones. Product Managers needed to step in to resolve technical blockers. Senior Developers needed to push it from their sides to keep it moving.
At Last
The entire project stalled, and my manager received various negative feedback about me. After discussions, they decided to remove me from the project.
“How could this happen to me?” I asked myself in disbelief.
What Went Wrong?
Fast-forward to today, after working on some other teams and projects, I realized that I was not ready.
Some of the biggest mistakes I made:
1. No Learning Plan
Leaders should always have a plan, but I didn’t have one.
When I joined the team, I didn’t take actions to understand key knowledge, such as experts in different fields, the organization structure, and how decisions were made. For example, I didn’t connect with any stakeholders during the first few weeks. Not any other managers, not any PMs and no users of our service.
The consequences? When running into issues, I didn’t have enough resources at hand. For example, when I was designing a technical structure for the big project, I didn’t know whom to consult. That led to a misalignment between the design and the direction.
And numerous misalignments led to distrustful relationship and delayed timeline.
📖 Lessons Learned
When moving to a new team or joining an organization, there should always be a learning plan. That plan should include:
Knowing the people: direct reports, stakeholders, and organization structure
Understanding technology: System architecture, tech stack.
Exploring the others: project, process, business, product, and success metrics
The timeline to achieve them
Knowing all these would allow me to make better decisions, and know who to talk to when running into issues.
The above is an over-simplified version of a popular book: The First 90 Days (not affiliated) by Michael D. Watkins. Check it out if you are interested!
2. Prioritizing Irrelevant Work
I insisted on doing hands-on development even if that was optional. A lot of time were spent on figuring out how to build applications and do database migrations.
Managers doing coding was not the problem, but the problem was that there were bigger issues. At that time, the team did not have a technical roadmap, not enough resources, and no clear direction. I ignored those completely.
Even if I didn’t do database migrations, the team was able to do it on its own. However, they were not able to define the technical roadmap. I needed to be the driver.
📖 Lessons Learned
Leadership is more about enabling the team. Focus on what only leaders can do and delegate the rest to the team, especially during tough times.
👑 Priority: Defining team roadmap, direction, and resource requirements.
🥈 Secondary: Hands-on development & answering common inquiries. These should be delegated to the team.
3. Not Addressing Feedback Properly
I received negative feedback after the first month. I thought people were overreacting.
In fact, I was not humble enough to take criticism. I took some actions to address minor feedbacks, but for the major feedback: “not being able to move the project forward”, it has a bigger scope and I failed to take actions. I wasn’t resourceful enough to create an improvement plan for myself.
📖 Lessons Learned
Take a deep breath before handling criticism. Consider them a symptom.
Think about the cause behind this symptom. Don’t jump to the conclusions that it’s my or their problems. In most cases, it’s the misalignment between new joiners and the organization.
For example, if you receive feedback about being indecisive in decision-making, take it as a symptom. Explore the reasons behind it. It could be due to having insufficient resources or metrics to support the decisions. It could be the team having very diversified opinions.
Take it as part of the problem-solving process. Talk to different people to see different perspectives. Find a solution for this misalignment.
Last Words
I still feel bad when I thought about this experience, but it gave me a very good lesson.
I reflected on my mistakes regularly. Even though I still don’t have all the answers to those questions, I know what skills did I lack. Most importantly, I realized that I was not ready for that project.
Now I prioritize tasks better, delegate better, and the results look better.
My words to those who have similar experiences:
Do not let negative experience stop you. Reflect, improve, and make it your growth opportunity.
What’s your experience? Feel free to share with me in the comments 💬 :)
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