[michaeljx]

We have 5 different engineering teams in our company.

The 4 are being led by benevolent-dictator-type of engineers, the 5th by a person extremely non-commital. This person avoids exerting any technically authority, so as not to disturb the team's balance. All decisions are made democratically, all votes being equal regardless experience/seniority. Same goes when being called for estimates.

Two of the 4 teams have become so big and independent, that the dictator-leads no longer need to participate in the d2d operations/decisions, to the point where they now work mostly on individual RnD projects.

The other 2 are small specialized teams, whose members have become domain experts in specific areas, to the point that they can talk with the business and move on development, with little need of interaction with their lead, and absolutely no need for a PM/PO layer.

The only team that struggles to perform is the one with the non-commital lead. It became so bad, that the current discussion is to dissolve the team, and have it's members/responsibilities be absorbed by the 2 big ones.

[Aurornis]

> the 5th by a person extremely non-commital. This person avoids exerting any technically authority, so as not to disturb the team's balance. All decisions are made democratically, all votes being equal regardless experience/seniority. Same goes when being called for estimates.

This is a very common failure mode for first-time leaders and managers. They optimize for minimizing conflict and want everyone on the team to like them.

A difficult lesson to learn in leadership positions is that you can’t make everyone happy and you can’t avoid every conflict.

Hyper-democratic leadership styles don’t work outside of very small and tight knit teams where everyone was already on the same page.

Someone needs to pull that person aside for some intense coaching to train them out of the mindset of people-pleasing and into the reality of getting work done. It’s not a fun transition but it needs to be coached. This is one of the turning points where many people realize they don’t want to be in leadership or management roles because the difficult decisions and uncomfortable conversations are in conflict with their personality.

[michaeljx]

Exactly. I think both parties (him and his VP) are now realising that maybe this person will be happier/better suited as an IC

[michaeljx]

Thinking about this more. I guess my n=5 observation is that committal engineers tend to have specific expectations about the performance of their teammates, and hence produce similarly performing teams to them