Effective Leadership Strategies for Managing a Team with Diverse Skill Sets

 I’ve managed teams before—first as a sales engineer, then as a network engineer. In those leadership roles, I knew the jobs of those I was managing because I had done them myself. Now I find myself in the position of managing a very talented and diverse team of developer advocates, but here’s the rub: I’ve never actually done their job before. Talk about imposter syndrome! How could I be an effective leader? How could I relate to their challenges when I’ve never faced those challenges before? Questions like these were keeping me up at night, but I soon found that other leaders in the organization, those who know about the role of the people I manage, were happy to share their knowledge and lend their support. Their desire to help went so far as them teaching me about the tools my team uses so I could better empathize with their challenges. The big lesson here was to never stop learning: seek out opportunities to do so, whatever it is that will make you a better leader.