There you are, in the middle of a sprint. Everything is going well, the team is humming along, and things are getting done when WHAM!, a bug from an obscure part of the application that you’ve never personally dealt with is discovered. It’s not critical enough to drop everything to fix, and it’s not benign enough to just dump in the backlog to forget.
You shrug your shoulders, open up your issue tracking software, and assign it to the developer who knows the most about that part of the application, and you get back to work. Problem solved.
Except it isn’t. Not really. What are the chances that the developer works on the bug in a timely manner? What are the chances that it gets done at all? In my experience, the chances of an issue treated this way getting resolved is near zero.
Hope != Leadership
We’ve all been there. As humans we have a natural reaction to non-critical issues that we’re not comfortable with: avoidance. Hand the problem off to someone else, make them responsible for it, and get back to what you’re good at. It feels good, safe. But it’s not leadership. It’s hope.
You set your team’s priorities, and if you don’t want to address an issue, it’s very likely that they won’t either. A leader isn’t part of a fire brigade, taking a bucket of water from one person and just handing it off to the next person with the hope that somewhere down the line someone is going to dump that bucket onto the fire. Leaders are the ones making sure that the chain has enough people, that everyone is on the same page, and that every bucket of water ends up where it’s needed. Every bucket of water is your responsibility, even the annoying ones that you don’t particularly like.
The leader keeps track of what needs to be done, when, and by whom. They communicate expectations and priorities, and they follow up so that nothing is forgotten. Your team will pick up on this discipline, and it will become unacceptable to just let things slide. Everyone will become more aware of the overall project goals, even the things that aren’t directly on their plate, but it all starts at the top. Leaders who only pay attention to things that interest them, end up leading teams of people who only work on things that interest them.
Remove Yourself from the Equation
This principle extends beyond technology to disciplinary issues, working with recruiters, approving budgets and expenses, anything that is a responsibility of your job that you don’t particularly enjoy. Ignoring it and hoping that it will take care of itself isn’t a plan. No problem ages well.
We’ve all done it, and we probably see it all the time. Every time someone says “someone should fix this”, or “we’ve had a plan to improve this forever”, you’re hearing the hope that someone else will tackle the problem and make it go away. This is an opportunity for a leader to step in, take responsibility, and deliver results that no one else will.
Your personal feelings shouldn’t drive your priorities, the severity of the issue and the benefit of the solution must. If you ever find yourself reluctant to tackle a problem, take a moment to examine why. Is it because you don’t think it’s important, or because it’s not something that you’d enjoy doing. Find a way to take yourself out of the equation, evaluate the issue on its own merits, and if you find that it should be addressed, drive it home.
In the end, it all comes down to responsibility. Leaders embrace it, even when it’s not fun. Never forget: hope is not a strategy, and it’s certainly not leadership.
