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How technical do technical leaders have to be?
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Workshops for technical leaders, in London and Cornwall How technical do technical leaders have to be? Are you worried that you’re too hands-on, or not hands-on enough? Are you exhausting yourself trying to keep up with every technical detail in your domain? Sometimes individual contributors are promoted to leadership positions and worry that they won’t be as hands-on as they used to be. Sometimes they worry that they no longer have time to stay up to date with modern technology and / or the state of their team’s code base(s). Sometimes it’s the other way around: Somebody who has never been hands-on in the technical realm is given a leadership position, and worries they’re “not technical enough”. On Mon 16th and Tue 17th June 2025, I'll be running a workshop titled How to deal with the “technical” in “technical leadership” at LDX3 (the reboot of Lead Dev London), designed to help attendees overcome their worries and figure out the best attitude and approach for them and their circumstances. Then on Fri 4th July 2025, I'll be in Cornwall at Agile on the Beach, running a similar workshop but in game format - titled Technical Leaders for Humanity – the helpful card game - where participants will make snap decisions that will earn them points as well as laughs, but will then have an opportunity to explore those decisions in more detail. Takeaways from both workshops: These are both fantastic events - two of my annual favourites. LDX3 will be a huge gathering of technical leadership, and Agile on the Beach will have a boat party and a beach party! In Cornwall! What's not to love? And I can offer an exclusive 15% off the LDX3 ticket price with the discount code CLARE15. Book your tickets and secure a slot now at LDX3 or Agile on the Beach. Talk on Continuous Integration Or if you're at the other end of the country, why not come see me at BCS Edinburgh on the evening of Wed 7th May ’25 for my talk Continuous Integration - that's not what they meant? Revamping my Offerings In other news, I'm currently working on a revamp of my main offerings, and I'll be sharing updates in this newsletter. If you're interested in resources aimed at technical leaders and software engineers, or you're a fellow freelance interested in the techniques I'm using to reboot my career, or you just want to follow what I'm up to, keep an eye on this newsletter. |
Clare Sudbery
Don't miss my next post! Subscribe to my Technical Leadership newsletter and learn a bunch of useful stuff about effective technical leadership.
Would you like to attend a talk about how to counter the fear of not being technical enough, or how we can stop making each other feel stupid, or how to make the most of diversity in the workplace? Or maybe you'd like to immerse yourself in one of my hands-on workshops... about refactoring skills, or about using TDD to wrangle AI coding, or facilitating mob / ensemble programming, or on how to handle the technical in technical leadership? Fancy spending time in Spain, or Berlin, or Paris, or...
What do you do if there's stuff you don't know? Can you ask questions? What questions should you ask? How should you ask those questions? In an earlier post, I addressed the fear of having colleagues with better technical skills than you. I suggested, "Spend time pairing with [those who know more than you]." And I added, "Handled without apology, this exercise will deepen your team members’ respect for you, rather than the other way around." I promised to explain what I meant in another post....
Oh no! You’ve been given a new team to lead, and they’re working on this horrible legacy code base that everyone hates! I can't make sense of this code... Nobody enjoys working on this code. Team members are going through the motions with no interest in what they do, repeating the same terrible patterns and either counting the days to retirement or actively looking for more exciting work elsewhere. Here are three things you can do to make things better, for yourself and for your team: 1....