Throughout my career, I’ve held multiple positions with varying levels of leadership responsibilities. As an expert who transitioned into leadership, my biggest fear was, “What if someone asks me a question and I don’t have a good answer?” I faced this challenge when leading a WordPress project despite having no hands-on experience with it. An even bigger challenge arose when I was tasked with leading an entire QA department and guiding them toward better quality practices—a field where my only experience had been as a developer and team lead working alongside QA.

You Need to Know What to Do

While it’s true that only a confident leader can empower their team, this doesn’t mean you need to have all the technical answers—in fact, pretending to have knowledge you don’t possess is the worst possible approach.

You must realize that knowing everything isn’t your job—your role is to provide experience, facilitate team knowledge sharing, and offer guidance. Here are several effective approaches:

• Connect with subject-matter experts—your team comprises diverse skill sets, and leveraging the entire team’s expertise is crucial for achieving goals
• Initiate research with the team—provide direction on where to begin and guide the exploration process
• Ask the right questions—sometimes your role is simply to listen and create space for team members to work through solutions
• Ensure goals are precise and measurable:
  • Rather than requesting vague research, be specific—”Please spend one day researching and present three viable options for discussion”
  • Instead of asking for the “best” option, request pros and cons for each solution so the team can collectively determine the optimal approach

One Cannot Excel at Everything

While this should be common knowledge, as a leader, you often become the first point of contact for challenging issues. It’s essential to create space for team discussions and experimentation. However, defaulting to “Let’s have a quick team call” isn’t always the best solution—you need to balance discussion with action, as the ultimate goal is finding solutions, not just talking about them. Here’s how to utilize daily meetings more effectively:

• Ensure the schedule accommodates post-daily discussion time for team members:
  • Daily standup: 11:00 AM to 11:15 AM
  • Discussion period: 11:15 AM – 12:00 PM
• During status updates, explicitly ask each person about blockers, needs for technical review, or solution validation
• When topics require discussion, identify relevant team members and arrange immediate post-daily meetings

This simple approach saves time by preventing team members from sitting through discussions where they have no input or questions, while ensuring the right people connect when needed.

Think Beyond Technical Solutions

Solving problem X doesn’t always require technical solution Y. Draw from your development experience—consider not just solutions, but how you traditionally approached problem-solving. Did you build side prototypes, explore multiple solutions before validation, or break tasks into smaller components? Many software engineering challenges share similar patterns, even when addressing different requirements.

Summary

While your team spends most of their time immersed in code and details, be the leader who provides a broader perspective and challenges conventional thinking. Build trust and confidence by sharing relevant experience and equipping the team with tools to develop their own expertise.

Finally, remember to support your team by ensuring well-organized project structure, code architecture, and processes. Your team needs to feel that you approach your role and their work with respect, and that you can navigate confidently even when challenges arise.