One of the hardest skills as a Lead is developing a true, objective sense of the people on your team. This isn’t uni-dimensional – everyone is a bundle of strengths and weaknesses and summing that all up is a challenging and nuanced thing.
Below are rules of thumb. Take them directionally (or not at all) based on your unique circumstance and experience.
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This is the simplest device one can use; the ultimate litmus test of whether someone is succeeding and worth investing more in. Another articulation is the Netflix “keeper test” – “if this person was leaving, would I fight to keep them?”
For someone to stay on our team at Hex, the answer needs to be a clear “yes”, or we need to have a realistic plan to get them there. Now, this doesn’t mean that bumps or slips are “trap door” moments – far from. A Lead is expected to evaluate people on their entire record, balancing the ups and downs together into a complete picture.
This is a really tough bar to hold oneself to as a Lead, because when the answer is “no” it means hard work: lots of feedback, hard conversations, and potentially parting ways and finding a backfill. This is painful and most people naturally to avoid it – but great Leads embrace it.
And indeed, the easiest way to spot a mediocre Lead is someone who lets folks they wouldn’t re-hire persist on their team. The “I wouldn’t fight to keep them… but they’re here and not doing any harm” justification is a flag!
Anyone who has been in role for a few months should have a “sizzle reel” – a collection of highlights that show they’re capable of stunning work. This may not be every day or every project, but there should be some evidence they’re capable of true greatness. We should be blown away by something, and be salivating to get more of it.
This may seem simple but it’s easy to overlook, especially for folks who are culturally strong or nice to work with. You want it to work – but if someone has been here for 3+ months and hasn’t started building a sizzle reel, it’s probably not working out and we need to help them find another role, here or elsewhere.
When people are wondering where they want to go in their career or role, a simple starting point is asking, “what do you find yourself doing?”
We’re in “knowledge-class” roles with a high degree of flexibility in how they spend our days. All of us have some tasks we find ourselves going super deep on, gravitating toward, and going the extra mile. We also have tasks we do the bare minimum on, procrastinate doing, and try to avoid.
Taking an honest inventory of this – and tailoring a role around the things one gravitate towards – is surprisingly under-rated. Ask yourself, “what does this person go the extra mile on? What do they do on nights/weekends? What feels phoned-in or consistently takes longer than expected?” This can be extremely telling.
As an example, the Support Engineer who instinctively talks to users and writes feature specs is likely to be a better Product Manager than one who finds themselves working on demos and decks for customer checkins – you can just see it in how they spend their time.
Conversely, it’s rare that someone is magically going to start doing things they haven’t already been gravitating toward. The IC who doesn’t instinctively mentor others is unlikely to be a natural Lead. The Lead who doesn’t find themselves actively performance-managing their team is unlikely to be successful in a larger scope. And so on.
We’ve all worked with the folks who seem way too busy. Who show up exasperated, are distracted in meetings, can’t follow up in a timely manner, and aren’t operating proactively. They have a lot going on, and by all appearances they’re working hard… but the output isn’t there.
These folks are in over their heads, and need help! It’s easy to overlook or accept this in a startup context; there’s always a lot going on in growing companies and everyone is going to feel busy. But even folks who are being challenged or stretched shouldn’t consistently being showing up this way.