The more senior you become, the less clear the priorities and goals. You are expected to get stuff done more now than ever. So how do you manage to get things one when everything is so ambiguous?

Are you bringing the right issues to your boss? Your time together is limited, and what you bring to your boss drives his or her perception of you in a significant way. You may be sending the message that you are overwhelmed or ineffective without even knowing it. Learn what to bring to your boss to maximize your time together and send the right message that you are an effective leader.

You may think that once you’ve achieve some role or title at your company that you’ve made it. That people will listen to you, and being the boss will make things easier. But what every leader learns is that it’s not about the role or title. In a counter intuitive sucker punch, the higher up you get in an organization the less title and role matters. 

Have you ever found that you set a goal, only to let time get away from you? Other things creep in and the changes you had planned don't come to pass? Sometimes the first goal to set is one that helps you achieve all your other goals. Consider the habits and tools you have to implement change and accomplish your goals...

Do you ever think about how often you are positive versus critical of what someone else is aspiring to achieve? You don't need any special talent to give others a boost. I experienced this first-hand recently in the most unlikely of places.

We see the world from one point of view, and it is natural not to challenge the authenticity of that world view. What happens when you challenge yourself to see the world from a different point of view? There's a powerful and funny...

It is important to get clear status updates on projects from your team. I have witnessed a pattern of communication breakdown when a team doesn’t share negative status up the organization. As the boss, the tendency to shy away from delivering bad news is common. Nobody wants to disappoint the boss. How do you ensure you get the real scoop?

I was recently listening to a podcast that interviewed Liz Wiseman about learning and knowing. She advocates using the mentality of learning and argues that this mode brings out our best performance. You can retain some of the behaviors of a learner even in domains where you have expertise. Read more and find out how.

As a technical leader, you are responsible for delivering results through others. Your results are the results of your team. Your team performance is important not only assess, but to encourage through frequent and effective feedback. Don’t just rate them, coach them.

There is a common saying “there are no stupid questions.” In my experience, there ARE stupid questions. However, the risk for asking them is low. We generally don’t ask enough questions. There are tactics you can employ to mitigate the risk of asking stupid questions while you aspire to ask more questions.

Story telling is an important method of communication. I’ve been guilty of being too abstract in some of these blog posts. There are times when I’ve not used enough real-world examples, or told stories to help bring to life the recommendations. Use story telling to drive your message home.

Leaders are examples. You are being watched. Others will scrutinize your behavior and evaluate. Your team will infer all kinds of things about you from how you act. When you bring your bad day from home to work you create all sorts of confusion.

I believe in doing as you expect your team to do.  Model the work-life balance you want from your team to get the best results.

How does confidence factor into decisions making? Confidence in decision making is important, but probably not how you think.

I recently watched the movie Everest about a fateful expedition to the summit twenty years ago where eight people were killed. The movie has some seriously sad moments. The story highlights some leadership lessons that I couldn’t help recount as I thought about the story.

When you’re teaching, you’re leading. When you are in a position of having deep expertise, it puts you in a leadership position. We may be used to being the expert in a particular subject, yet we may not realize the leadership role which comes with teaching that subject to others.

Your technical leadership role includes building an organization. Apply some of the lessons from building software products to your role building organizations to get great outcomes and more satisfaction.

There is a romantic notion that we should be passionate about our work. I’m not convinced we should all aspire to passion in our work. As a technical leader, I don't think you must be passionate to be effective.

As a technical leader you are being pulled in more and more directions. You are forced every day to choose what to do in the few hours you are given. There appear to be no end to urgent demands on your time. It is tempting to think you can be efficient and do more than one thing at once. Do not.

One of the key aspects of being an effective technical leader is using your time wisely. As a leader, you begin to realize that time is the ultimate limited resource. Nobody has more than twenty-four hours in a day. No matter how big your responsibility, you only have twenty-four hours to spend on everything - work, home, family, self.