The 10 Most Common Mistakes of First-Time CTOs, #3 and #4
I've made most of these mistakes myself, and see people following the same path over and over. Don't let these mistakes limit your ability to have impact in this role.
Today's article is the second in a 5-part series in which I share the ten most common mistakes I see first-time CTOs make and ways to avoid them.
If you found this article and would like to read the series in order of publication, jump to the bottom of the page, where you'll find a link to the first article.
Today's mistakes are common missteps when trying to stay technical in the role.
I hope you'll find this helpful and actionable.
Let's get started!
#3 Solving technical issues first-hand to prove your worth.
You used to be one of the organization's most senior engineers. In many cases, your former peers now report to you. As you suffer from the common symptoms of Imposter Syndrome, you must prove to your former peers that you deserved your promotion. That somehow you are superior to them, even if you'd express the need in no such terms.
You convince yourself that you must live up to expectations or prove your worth, and you tend to do so using the measurements you applied in previous roles. The amount of technical contributions you can make is the scale you use to evaluate your worth in the new role.
The added comfort of familiarity only incentivizes you to further indulge in such activities instead of exploring new and unfamiliar territories integral to your new role.
You will devise excuses to justify it, such as the need to stay technically relevant to continue leading a team of experts.
How will they take your direction if you know less than they do?
Well, chances are you have not been promoted to the CTO level purely based on your technical background. Other essential skills, such as understanding the business, thinking strategically, communicating with nontechnical stakeholders, and running a well-functioning organization, have likely played a more critical role in landing your new job.
Keep participating in the technical discussions, setting the team's strategy and direction, and ensuring you have the right experts in the right roles.
Do not feel the need to be in every discussion—work instead on understanding how your strategy can enable distributed decision-making in your team.
#4 Coding every week as a way to “stay technical.”
Similar to issue #3, you might feel the only way to stay technical is to write code every week. You used to be good at it and think you can contribute a lot if you exercise your skills a little every week.
Coding is one of the most tactical activities you can engage in. The time you invest in coding doesn't scale well, as you will be only as productive as any other team member, except that you will likely have more interruptions and a more challenging time focusing for long periods.
But technology is a lot more than just writing code.
Instead, focus on the bigger picture: ensure that the architecture of your systems is coherent and aligned with the business needs for the upcoming 12 to 24 months.
Ensure your team adopts the most effective software development, delivery, and system operation engineering practices.
Stay on top of what is happening in the industry, and leverage the expertise of other team members to provide you with more detailed and hands-on insights.
Ask questions, a lot of them. You don't need to be familiar with the latest framework to help the team consider tradeoffs, corner cases, or the performance implications of their choices.
Deploy your technical savviness to the team's service by allowing its members to do a better job rather than doing the work for them.
I recently published an article on the topic, which delves deeper into my thoughts around this topic.
Today, I described two more of the ten most common mistakes I've seen first-time CTOs make.
Your situation might resonate with some of them, and you might struggle with other aspects I didn't cover here.
Each case is different, and generalization can help us start thinking about our case from an outside perspective.
I hope you enjoyed today's article.
See you next week!
Previous articles in the series
This is the second of a five-part series. The first article is also available here, in case you missed it.
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