Leadership Skills for Lean Software Development
It takes special software leadership skills to learn what customers want through lean software development.
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It takes special software leadership skills to learn what customers want through lean software development.
In this episode, I share 7 key traits that will help you, or someone else you know who’s leading, to build the most profitable software ideas for customers.
1. Mercy
Mercy helps leaders show others that it’s safe to make mistakes.
Without this key trait, programmers, UX designers, operations personnel, and anyone else developing software won’t feel comfortable taking risks.
2. Patience
Patience is essential to a learning organization.
When short term results and confirmation are chased, it prevents everyone from failing in the short term to discover the most valuable software ideas.
3. Trust
Trust is a bedrock of environments for software development that leaders must demonstrate to bring the best out in their people.
When autonomy is a core principle behind work, everyone will put forth creative ideas with less trepidation.
4. Honesty
Honesty is the best policy, and nowhere is this more true than in a lean startup or any other team that’s taking on building software that’s truly innovative.
When politics and image management prevent transparency – having a shared understanding is nearly impossible.
5. Courage
Courage will be required to lead others to take risks.
There will always be someone internal, external (like a customer) or a market analyst who might think an idea isn’t a good one.
But with the courage to take risks comes the ability to present truly bold and remarkable ideas to the market.
No one cares about “me too” products in this industry.
6. Humility
Humility helps everyone developing software to see that no matter how experienced of a leader you are – you know there’s more to learn.
The most experienced leaders know that a “know it all” attitude is certain death to most cultures of learning.
7. Empathy
Finally empathy is a key trait of leaders of software companies that learn.
Being able to look outside yourself to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, is essential.
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About the Healthy Software Developer show.
On the show, Jayme shares all of his teamwork and leadership strategies, guidelines for healthy company culture, and stories about real projects so you can have a sustainable career in the software industry.
Develop a mindset and habits to keep you calm so you still love writing code - avoiding the traps most developers fall into.
Jayme Edwards
A family man and veteran of over 30 software projects, Jayme experienced many wins and losses that led him to helping developers succeed in their careers online.