How to be a leader (or at least pretend to be one)

All the listed points are valid but theoretical. This is HR bull shit. None of this is applicable in real life.

In real life, you want to be a leader - Learn to foward emails saying "please take care" ot " for your info and action". When things go wrong, blame others. When things go right, claim credit.

Simple and effective. The whole of tech industry works in this principle.

I am assuming you are genuinely interested to learn about “leadership” and not putting this as Sunday sarcasms.

In my experience, two important things are -

1. Ownership
2. Clarity

By ownership, it’s not defined by designations but the way you reflect it within your organisation. Sometimes, handling the most difficult stakeholder also becomes the part of ownership. Corporates (or any organisation) are slippery, muddy, uneven paths where you have to stay firm and take the initiatives to the next destination. Another aspect of ownership is not to get emotionally involved with an initiative as it might impact the objectivity lens.

Clarity, a small word but have big impact. To start with, how easy you are making life of your managers in understanding the tasks involved. Clarity of problem scope, timelines, resourcing, pitfalls. All these things come with intuition plus org fashion. Quantifying problems sometimes help people in horizontal orgs understand things better.

To implement these two pillars in your corporate life. Try asking questions from yourself what kind of ownership & clarity you added to initiative. It will help you structure your thoughts & conversations with your leaders.

Had come across this in linked, I personally agree to this guy point ot view

From Code Monkey to Engineering Leader: The Mindset Shift That Changed Everything I used to measure my worth by the number of lines of code I wrote. The more commits, the better I felt. Bug fixed? I was the hero. Feature shipped? Another win. But when I stepped into leadership, everything changed. I realized that engineering leadership isn’t about writing the best code—it’s about building the best team. 💡 Here’s what I wish I knew earlier: 1️⃣ Stop being the smartest person in the room. If you are, you’ve failed. Leadership is about hiring people smarter than you and empowering them. 2️⃣ Your impact is no longer measured by your output, but by your team's outcomes. You don’t scale by coding more; you scale by enabling others. 3️⃣ Silence is a warning sign. If your engineers aren't challenging decisions or bringing ideas, the problem isn’t them—it’s you. Psychological safety fuels innovation. 4️⃣ The best leaders remove blockers, not write more code. Your job isn’t to "fix things"; it’s to create an environment where things don’t break in the first place. 5️⃣ Growth = Discomfort. If leadership feels easy, you're doing it wrong. Growth happens at the edge of discomfort—embrace it.

Empathy.

For me, It was never about confidence and all. I have a very good memory and eye for detail, hard worker. I remember small changes done 3 years back and can relate if some bugs pop up I recently learned that one of my colleague said that "if I ever come to a leadership position, I will try to become "my name" It made me happy for sometime and this is the thought process of many in my team
Why do I believe him "He is not in my team anymore, working in a different Project "

At that time I realised that, "I am the lead I was hoping to become"

The harder you make for your team member the better leader you are. Be an asshole for them. That’s what management expect from u.

Just ruin the Lower level career and life.

Leadership comes at different levels , Everyone is not a leader . You will find PPL at higher position who just don't know how to lead.

L1 - Position People follow you because they have to

L2 - Permission People follow you because they want to

L3 - Production People follow because what you have achieved for Team or have done for organisation

L4 - People Development People follow you because what you have done for them

L5 - Pnnacle / Respect People follow you because of who you are & what you represent

Leadership can be learnt & imitated , irrespective of level you are at. You could be at SE / SSE level but mentor & guide others in team. I don't mean just solve & pitch in an issue .

Mentorship to help them evolve professionally & personally.

When you start doing that people will start looking at you for leadership. To gain your perspective of the right approach & imitate you as you would have acted in particular situation.

Leadership also means increased Responsibility & Accountability.

So while many will see a mail with FYA & roll eyes
May be they are too narrow minded to see the trust your superior is placing in your ability & loosing on chance to get mentored.

For me, leadership is always about:

1. The buck stops at you. There might be a lot of pressure from the top on you. If you are a leader, you will soak all the pressure and won't let it percolate to your reportees or staff team. You will set goals and targets for them, but you won't shout at them or vent ur frustration on them simply bcs "you are under a lot of pressure".

2. Empathise with your juniors, understand that they go through a lot of stress under the job role and they might not be communicating the same to you. But that doesn't mean that they aren't under stress. Be empathetic while following up on status, be mindful of lunch or dinner time while trying to get that priority task from them, if working on the weekend, ensure that it's only for a couple of hours instead of gobbling up the entire weekend.

3. The best leaders might not be technically the best in the team. But they should have enought communication proactivity to discuss concepts which they don't understand with their higher ups or peers and get the team in the right direction.

4. Responsibly of owning up to the tasks: Have the status of tasks assigned and discussed with the overseas team at the tip of your fingers. Make it a habit of posting the status on email.

5. Putting a stand for your team: The higher ups might be pushing for something against the team under you, but instead of meekly subjugating yourself to them, make sure to voice the concerns for your team. In short term, they might not like it but in long term, your opinion shall always be valued if it's a constructive environment.

Following are the qualities required

1. You should have the ability to build your own resources rather than rely on other resources. Means you have the ability to train your own resources, which shows that you know how to work
2. No micro management,because skilled employees don't like getting micro-managed. Because he knows when and how to deliver.

According to me, unskilled manager will look others as unskilled, which means if he is incapable, he will believe others are also incapable. Also he will work only if he micro managed, so will do the same thing his team's as well.

So if you want to good manager you should work, you should know how to work and you should know how to make your team to work