Pick any professional sport and examine the team rosters. You’ll discover something interesting: the captain rarely appears at the top of individual performance statistics. They’re not necessarily scoring the most goals, getting the most assists, or dominating the league leaderboards.
This isn’t a coincidence - it’s by design.
What Makes a Captain
The captain isn’t supposed to be the best individual player. Instead, they possess fundamentally different skills:
Leadership Through Service:
- Lead by example - Demonstrate work ethic, attitude, and commitment others want to emulate
- Bring out the best in teammates - Recognize individual strengths and create opportunities for others to excel
- Stand up for the team - Advocate for teammates, take responsibility for failures, share credit for successes
- Listen actively - Understand what each team member needs to perform at their peak
- Inspire excellence - Help others believe in their potential and push beyond perceived limitations
The Software Development Parallel
In engineering teams, we often fall into the trap of promoting our strongest individual contributors to leadership roles. The assumption seems logical: if they’re the best coder, they should lead the team.
This thinking creates several problems:
The Star Player Syndrome
When the “best” developer becomes the leader, they often become a bottleneck:
- Knowledge hoarding - Solutions flow through one person instead of being distributed
- Decision dependency - Team waits for the leader’s technical approval on everything
- Reduced team growth - Others don’t develop skills when one person handles complex work
- Single point of failure - Project risk concentrates in one individual
The Leadership Skills Gap
Technical excellence and leadership excellence are different competencies:
Technical Skills:
- Deep knowledge of languages, frameworks, and tools
- Ability to solve complex algorithmic problems
- Understanding of system architecture and design patterns
- Debugging and optimization expertise
Leadership Skills:
- Clear communication across technical and business stakeholders
- Ability to delegate effectively and trust others
- Conflict resolution and team dynamics management
- Strategic thinking and long-term planning
- Mentoring and developing others
What Engineering Leadership Actually Requires
Effective technical leaders focus on team multiplication rather than individual contribution:
1. Enabling Others
- Remove blockers - Clear obstacles that prevent team productivity
- Provide context - Help team understand business goals and technical constraints
- Create learning opportunities - Pair programming, code reviews, knowledge sharing sessions
- Advocate upward - Represent team needs to management and other departments
2. Strategic Thinking
- Technical vision - Define long-term architecture and technology choices
- Risk management - Identify and mitigate technical debt and project risks
- Resource allocation - Balance feature work, maintenance, and improvement initiatives
- Cross-team coordination - Ensure alignment with other engineering teams
3. Team Development
- Skill assessment - Understand each team member’s strengths and growth areas
- Career guidance - Help individuals progress toward their professional goals
- Performance feedback - Provide constructive, specific feedback for improvement
- Recognition - Celebrate achievements and give credit where due
The Multiplier Effect
A great technical leader amplifies the entire team’s output. Consider the impact:
Individual Contributor Approach:
- One person produces excellent work
- Team depends on that person for complex tasks
- Knowledge and decision-making centralized
- Total team output limited by one person’s capacity
Leadership Approach:
- Leader enables 5-8 people to produce excellent work
- Knowledge and skills distributed across team
- Decision-making delegated appropriately
- Total team output multiplied through collective capability
Practical Implementation
When selecting technical leaders, evaluate:
- Communication skills - Can they explain complex concepts clearly?
- Empathy - Do they understand and respond to others’ perspectives?
- Growth mindset - Are they excited about developing others?
- Systems thinking - Can they see beyond immediate technical problems?
- Conflict resolution - How do they handle disagreements and tension?
The Bottom Line
The most valuable team member isn’t always the one writing the most code or solving the hardest problems. Sometimes it’s the person who helps five other developers write better code and solve problems more effectively.
“I may not be able to change the world, but I guarantee that I will spark the mind that will change the world.” - Tupac Shakur
Great leaders multiply the impact of those around them. In software development, as in sports, the captain’s job isn’t to be the star - it’s to help everyone else shine.