Trust Your Team But Play Tie-breaker: Mastering the Art of Decision-making

Being a leader in a startup's engineering team is more than just being good at tech. It's about knowing when to let people do their own thing and when to make big decisions.

Be a Traffic Director

Good leaders are like traffic directors at an airport. They don't plan the routes, fill the planes with fuel, or fly them. They let the teams do their own thing. But, when there's a critical point where things might clash or get messy, they step in to sort out the routes and stop any crashes.

Go for Win-Win Decisions

One great skill for a leader is spotting situations where everyone can win. There's a common example of this: two people are trying to get an orange, both of them are running companies that make important vaccines. They get stuck trying to decide who gets the orange until they find a way both can win — one needs the orange peel, and the other needs the juice.

In engineering, you can often use this same idea. If you have to choose between option A and B, can you do both, or one after the other? This way of thinking can save time you'd spend figuring out what to do, which leads to quicker decision-making and getting things done.

Help Your Team Make Decisions

Part of your job as a leader is to help your team get better at making decisions. Push them to share their ideas and let them make big decisions when you can.

You also have to know the difference between "Type 1 and Type 2" decisions. This idea comes from Amazon. It's important to tell the difference between decisions you can change later and decisions you can't undo, so you can decide how much thought and effort to put into making them.

Coaching tips:

• Keep asking "What do you think?".
• Let your team make big decisions.

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