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What are the Timlids afraid of and why should they stop doing this

I’m sure somewhere there is a book “How to Sit Timlid”. It is passed from hand to hand, from team to team and contains tips like: “Timlid will never quit of his own free will, because this is not a job, but a fairy tale! He needs to be broken ”, or“ If your team leader went on vacation, write to him that you need to talk when he returns. Let instead of surfing, he thinks that the team ran away in his absence ”, and also“ Sabotate the team’s attempts to introduce new useful workflows with a phrase from the Agile manifesto that people and interaction are more important than processes and tools. ” Otherwise, it is simply impossible to explain why all team leaders face the same problems and fears.

I interviewed over 400 team leaders to deconstruct some of the team leader fears. The survey results and the study of the team leader helped to understand how to deal with them, and I want to share the results. Simple life hacks will help less to suffer from impostor syndrome not only to timlids, but to any specialists who have recently completed specific tasks and now lead a team of performers.



Fear number 1. You are not in demand in the market


This is the fear that one day you cannot bring a mammoth to your man or woman because you lost your job. And you will not be able to find a new one, because team leaders are not needed in the labor market.
The book “How to Sit Up Timlid,” Tip # 6: Tell us that you envy Timlid’s courage in relation to work. After all, if a developer leaves the company, he can find a new job almost in one day, and a team lead is almost never, because who needs team leads?
Various fears and myths give rise to this fear. We will analyze them based on the results of the survey, in which team leaders with different backgrounds, with different experiences, from different teams took part.

Timlids are not hired, but raised inside the team


One of the questions in my survey was: “How did you become a team leader?” Indeed, it turned out that only 14% of team leads come from the market, the rest one way or another grow inside the company.


There are no vacancies in the market


According to the company New.HR , which helped me analyze the labor market, about 500 vacancies for team leaders are now open throughout Russia.


According to various sources, approximately 50 thousand new developers a year appear in Russia. These are people who graduate from universities, or those who become bakers from the bakers.

Let's make a simple calculation: for 50 thousand developers in a standard proportion of seven to one you need 7 thousand new team leads . Recall that 15% of this need is closed by hiring companies from the market - we will receive about a thousand new vacancies per year .

That is, there are vacancies and the need for team leaders - "the myth is refuted."

Timlids have no universal skills


Below are the skills that are used in the work from 50% to 90% of the surveyed team leaders (the larger the font size, the more people indicated this skill among those used in the work).



It turns out that the basic skills of team leaders are not tied to a particular company. If you can motivate people, find what is important to them, you can use these skills in another company. Therefore, the third myth is also rather a myth.

I will receive less than now


The diagram shows the gross total income (fixed salary + pre-tax premiums) according to the Korn Ferry analytical HR company for 91 Moscow companies (7800 people). Korn Ferry analysts come to different companies (IT and not IT), take all the data about the salaries of employees and what they do, and then lead to their own grading system. CTO, which does not have a single employee in the subordinate and he is developing all the time, in this study will be in the class of an ordinary developer.


Percentiles are marked on a horizontal scale, that is, 50% of people get less than indicated at p50, and 50% respectively more. The same is true for p10, p25, p75 and p90 - 90% of people from the reference group earn less.

In terms of salary forks, this means that, entering the market, you can count on:

  • 144–294 thousand rubles, if you are a professional who, perhaps, mentors a couple of people, but hardly performs the entire set of team lead functions.
  • 175–357 thousand rubles if you are a team lead for a small team.
  • 225–491 thousand rubles, if you are a team lead of a large team of 10-30 people or manager managers.

It is possible that for some, these values ​​will seem very overstated, and for others, on the contrary - outdated. This means that your experience is in the area of ​​the tails of the normal distribution and, perhaps, it is time to update it.

How to overcome the fear that you are not in demand in the market


Now that we’ve figured out the myths, let's see what recipes to use to feel more confident.
Recipe number 1: Go for interviews at least once every six months.


Going for interviews is good, and here's why.

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Reflection is important to ensure that you are a professional, not an impostor. When making a decision, for example, starting a new project or hiring someone, always remember why you made this decision. Return to this when the outcome of your decision is already known.

The 2 by 2 matrix is ​​a universal thing, it is simple, but it looks smart enough. Suitable in this case.


For example, you hired a developer because during the interview he seemed to be a good specialist, but six months later it became clear that he was not suitable for your team. Here you recall how you made the hiring decision and make amendments to your recruitment guidelines so that you make fewer mistakes later on.

There are situations when pure luck played a role. This does not mean that you make good decisions and you should continue to hope for a similar scenario. If you're lucky, that's great, but again, you need to rethink your principles.
Recipe number 3: Build your development plan based on who you want to become.
After receiving feedback on the interviews and requesting it from your colleagues, analyzing your decisions, take care of your development. And it’s not abstractly “I want to learn how to motivate”, but upgrade exactly what you are most lacking now.

The Teamlead Roadmap project can help with this . This is a spreading map of the various competencies that are expected from team leader in different companies. Each development branch has a great description: what it includes, how to pump it, what to pay attention to, how not to do it, etc.

Fear number 2. You do not rummage in development


Many people think that becoming a manager, you will immediately forget how to develop. Therefore, the book “How to Sit Up Timlid” advises asking the Timlid open questions about recent changes in technology and not letting off abstract answers like “Yes, it looks interesting, you have to try it.” Another way to reinforce Timlid’s insecurity is more sophisticated:
The book “How to Sit Timlid”, tip number 8: Organize a hackathon and put together a team of your colleagues. When the team leader comes up and timidly asks why they didn’t take him, say that you do not need Excel and Exchange programmers in the team.
To enhance the effect, the book recommends digging out timlid commits three years ago, throwing a laugh in a general chat room . Imposter Syndrome needs constant recharge - let the team leader think that when he was a developer, he didn’t fumble too.

These scary stories are based on the Timlid’s inner belief that:

  • He must be smarter than any member of the team.
  • If you do not write the code as an expert, you are not really needed.
  • Having become a team leader, you forget how to develop at all.

Timlid must be smarter than any member of the team


Let's go back to the survey and see how team leaders evaluate their technical skills in relation to the rest of the team.


80% of respondents believe that they are the most powerful in their team.
Indeed, team leaders are often nominated as team leaders, so this myth is pretty well-founded.

Interestingly, confidence in their technical level correlates with how many team leaders program.


If the team lead cod a lot, he leads the team very confidently. But the less he works with his hands, the lower his confidence - in the region of 10%, timlids become easy prey for someone who is going to sit on him.

If you don’t write the code, you don’t need it - this is an untenable myth: 34% of the interviewed team leaders do not consider it their duty to write code and live normally with it.

Becoming a team leader, you forget how to develop


On average, 40% of the time a team leader is engaged in engineering tasks - writes code if he is a team leader.


Obviously, this percentage correlates with team size. In a small team of 3-4 people, the team leader is most likely a “playing coach”. But with the growth of the team, the time for the code remains less and less, and the team lead really forgets how to develop it. This myth is partially true.

How to overcome fear that you do not rummage in development


Despite the fact that the myths about a decrease in the level of engineering competence of the Timlid partially justified themselves, there are sure ways to combat the second fear.
Recipe # 1: Try the Servant Leadership philosophy instead of technological dominance.
Instead of trying hard to maintain technical skills, you can accept, admit that you are unlikely to succeed, and become a leader-servant.


Servant Leadership is an interesting management philosophy that, for example, is followed by Booking.com.
Recipe number 2: Write the code and do not listen to anyone.
At conferences it is often said that a real team lead does not write code, it should be a manager on barricades. But if you want to write code, there is nothing to worry about. However, there is a nuance.


Do not do so. Do not think that since you are a team leader, then you need to take into work the most blocking, difficult, burning or just cool of the backlog. Taking on the most important engineering task, you are likely to switch to other, also important and urgent matters such as rallies, planning, etc.

That is, if you want to write code - write, but do something that will not block the work of your team. Taking on the task of the developer, choose this:

  • what the sprint success does not depend on;
  • what will benefit the team or product;
  • what can be stretched in time;
  • which does not interfere with the development of the team.

For example, automate routine things, edit old bugs, do the necessary features - everything that will benefit, but will not interfere with your team.
Recipe number 3: Not enough time to follow the technology? Let it be done for you.
There are several proven management techniques:

  • Digests : take the developer, send read articles, ask for a report in the form of a squeeze, send it to the whole team - you are great!
  • Technical explanations : take two developers, send reports, assemble a team in a meeting room , listen to reports - you're great!
  • Hackathons : take a team, throw in a list of technologies, buy pizza, watch a battle - you're great!

Fear number 3. Your work is meaningless


This is the most difficult of fears. When one day you wake up and suddenly realize that you don’t really want to go to work that you liked before. You’re trying to remember what you’ve done in the past couple of weeks, and it’s only mechanical drag of tasks from the “TO DO” column to the “IN PROGRESS” column that comes to mind. You understand that you have ceased to see the point in what you are doing.
In the book “How to Sit Up Timlid”, it is advised to use this fear:

  • Tip number 10: More often joke that your team leader is a useless layer.
  • Tip # 11: Ask why the team leader enjoys in his work.
  • Advice number 12: More often throw him articles about professional burnout.
Where did these jokes come from, in which there is a joke? Myths are again to blame.

In the Timlids go only for salary


That's what people answered the question, what is their motivation to work as a team leader , why did they become a team leader.


Arguments such as the possibility of greater influence on the project, independence in decision making, work with the team and people, and self-development came to the fore. Only half of the people said that their motivation is salary. And note, I did not ask to highlight the main factor, but in general asked what they were working for.

Interestingly, 12% of respondents say that they do not like being a team leader ...

Timlid's work cannot be appreciated


So the answers to the question were distributed: do you understand how the leader evaluates your work?


Unfortunately, 75% of the surveyed team leaders do not know how the leader evaluates their work or are not sure about it. Obviously, when you do not understand what the leader wants from you, it is difficult to understand what to do at all.

How to overcome fear that your work is meaningless


Recipe number 1: Take a pen, a sheet of paper and write out all the bad and good in your work.


First write in general everything that is in the head of the good and bad about work. Set aside the resulting document with a stream of thoughts for a while and go for a walk or just switch to something else. When you return, re-read the notes and try to highlight your motivational factors - positive or negative. Compare how current the role, project, company meets these motivational factors. If you managed to mark only a small part, then perhaps that is why your work seems meaningless to you.
Recipe number 2: Ask the leader how he understands that you work well.
This is a very important question for the leader, and the answer that team lead works well, if his team works well, should not be enough for you. Ask clarifying questions, dig, but achieve clear criteria for evaluating the outcome of your work. You can not measure your work only by the success of the team.
Recipe 3: Record all your achievements and feel free to use this list.
They hired a cool dude - write it down, fired an uncool dude - write it down, made a cool feature - write it down, did something that you consider your achievement - write it down. This list will be useful in three cases:

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Get a separate document and, for example, enter every three of your main focuses there every Monday, and in terms of the result, not the process. For example, do not conduct 10 interviews with users, but test such a hypothesis. This will help not to spray focus and team lead, and team. In addition, the team will understand what the leader is doing and what is most important for him at this moment.

Maybe the book “How to Sit Timlid” does not exist, but these and other fears haunt many Timlids. When I first became the team lead of a small team 7 years ago, I was afraid to let my team down and tried to work the most. Next came the fear that I was not competent as a manager. Then the team grew, I began to move away from development and engage in people, there was a fear that I did not rummage in development. I looked at other leaders - they seemed smarter than me. Fears multiplied.

The recipes in the article helped me cope. Every time I met a new fear and inconvenience, I reflected and looked for reasons. Usually I made a list of problems, each of which I considered separately and found a clear solution. Therefore, I hope that these tips will help you. And if you feel completely confident in the role of team lead, completely different points interfere with you, use raw survey data, market research and useful materials to independently refute myths, and share the results in the comments.

Fight your fears and remember that you are not alone in these fears!

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