Omid's Blog

Category: soft skill

  • From Bottleneck to Leader: How Tech Leads Can Turn Their Weaknesses into Team Strengths

    Reading Time: 3 minutes

    As a senior developer or tech lead, your strongest traits—like high standards, deep skepticism, and rapid problem-solving—can sometimes become your biggest roadblocks. What starts as dedication to quality can spiral into perfectionism, overengineering, and even alienating your team.

    In this post, I’ll break down six common leadership pitfalls that often sneak into the workflows of experienced developers and explore practical mindset shifts to turn those weaknesses into powerful strengths.

    If you want to lead smarter, ship faster, and build scalable teams without burning out, keep reading.

    1. Perfectionism disguised as “high standards”

    You hold your code and architecture to such a high bar that you can get stuck in endless refactoring loops. Sometimes “good enough and shipped” would move the needle more than “perfect but delayed,” but your brain doesn’t let go easily.

    2. Overengineering risk

    Because you see so many angles of a problem, you sometimes build for edge cases that may never happen. This can lead to complexity creep — the code is technically brilliant, but now your onboarding docs are 40 pages long and no junior can touch it without a PhD in “Your Way of Doing Things.”

    3. Skepticism turning into cynicism

    Your healthy questioning attitude can slide into outright dismissal of other people’s approaches, especially if they’re “WordPress conventional wisdom” or non-VIP best practices. This can alienate collaborators if it’s not balanced with a bit of humility.

    4. Lone wolf tendencies

    You’re capable of carrying entire projects end-to-end, which means you sometimes skip building a strong team process because you can “just do it faster yourself.” It works short-term, but it can burn you out and limit scalability when you need others to keep pace.

    5. Impatience with slow thinkers

    You think fast, connect dots quickly, and get frustrated when others don’t “get it” right away. In leadership contexts, this can unintentionally make people feel small or hesitant to contribute ideas.

    6. The “shiny tool” distraction

    Because you’re curious and love innovation, you can sometimes chase new tech or patterns before squeezing all the value out of what you already have. It’s exciting for you, but not always the most ROI-friendly move for a product roadmap.

    Now that we’ve identified these common pitfalls and how they quietly hold us back, the real question is—how do we move forward? How do we stop these challenges from becoming bottlenecks and instead turn them into leadership strengths that drive growth? The following are practical, battle-tested strategies I use to tackle each of these issues head-on and transform them into powerful assets for your team and projects.

    1. Perfectionism → Release discipline

    Instead of trying to crush perfectionism, turn it into a two-phase mindset:

    • Phase 1: Ship the minimal viable excellent version fast. (Think “90% of your bar, but in production.”)
    • Phase 2: Iterate in controlled sprints for the polish you crave.
      This keeps momentum while still satisfying your need for quality — and stops your projects from rotting in “almost ready” limbo.

    2. Overengineering → Scalable by stages

    When your brain is screaming “but what if…”, answer it with:

    • Stage 1: Build for today’s traffic and use cases, but design escape hatches for future complexity.
    • This means architecture that can expand, but code that stays lean until reality forces the upgrade.
      That way you’re not baking in complexity before the market even proves it’s needed.

    3. Skepticism → Mentorship tool

    Instead of leading with “that won’t work”, lead with “what’s your reasoning here?”.
    This flips you from “the guy who shoots ideas down” to “the guy who helps people think better.”
    You’ll still dismantle bad solutions, but you’ll also gain influence and loyalty because people will feel like you sharpen them, not just judge them.

    4. Lone wolf → Architect + delegator

    Force yourself to not do every piece — even if you can do it faster.
    Your job as the “architect brain” is to set the blueprint, the standards, and the guardrails — then let others implement.
    This builds a machine that runs without you, which is the difference between a senior dev and a CTO-level leader.

    5. Impatience → Context-based communication

    When someone’s slow to get it, check:

    • Are they missing the goal? (Explain why first.)
    • Are they missing the flow? (Map out the steps visually.)
    • Are they missing the skill? (Assign learning before re-explaining.)
      Doing this keeps your frustration down and makes you look like a patient leader — even if inside you’re ready to flip a table.

    6. Shiny tool syndrome → Sandbox before production

    You can indulge your curiosity without derailing production by creating a personal R&D sandbox:

    • Play with the tech.
    • Benchmark it.
    • Decide if it’s truly worth replacing or augmenting what’s in production.
      This scratches your innovation itch while keeping the main roadmap clean.

    Final Thoughts: Shift from Hero to Strategist

    Stop thinking like “the hero dev who solves problems” and start thinking like “the strategist who designs systems that solve problems without me touching every line of code.”
    That’s how you turn these traits into force multipliers instead of bottlenecks.

    Being a tech lead isn’t just about writing perfect code.
    It’s about evolving into a technical leader who can:

    • Ship with discipline
    • Design for scale without overengineering
    • Lead without cynicism
    • Build teams, not dependencies

    When you master that shift, you stop being the bottleneck — and start being the reason your product scales beyond you.

  • How Past Conversations Can Cloud Communication and Create Misunderstandings

    Reading Time: 4 minutes

    Talking with your team at a tech company can sometimes feel like fixing a bug—you think you explained everything clearly, but someone still gets confused. Suddenly, you’re stuck in a loop of clarifications. Misunderstandings happen, but they don’t have to slow down teamwork or cause frustration.

    Today, I had an experience that showed me how past conversations can affect how we think and react. Some time ago, my managers told me I needed to improve my communication skills and overcome my language barrier. I took their advice seriously. At the start of the year, I started using different tools and courses to improve. I felt like I had made great progress.

    Then, today, something happened that made me doubt myself. I sent a simple message to a coworker: I told her I would reply in an hour on Github and I need to fix a thing during that time and asked her to test the product in a different way. That was it. But when I saw my coworkers reacting with confusion, I felt frustrated. Did I make any progress after a month of working on my skills?

    I re-read my message many times, trying to find my mistake. During that time, I sent a few more messages that were not really necessary. But then I realized—the problem was not my message. It was the way I was thinking about the situation.

    I always believed that good communication means being able to work with different kinds of people, even those who don’t communicate well. But at that moment, my past conversations with my managers made me feel like I had failed again. I wasn’t just responding to my coworker—I was reacting to my fear that I still wasn’t good enough at communication.

    After a few more messages, I understood something important: my coworkers were not confused because my message was unclear. They were confused because they expected something different based on past assumption. Their reaction had nothing to do with my communication skills.

    This was a valuable lesson. Past feedback helps us improve, but it should not make us doubt ourselves in every situation. Sometimes, the problem is not in what we say—it’s in how we think about the response we get.

    The Science Behind Miscommunication

    Misunderstandings don’t just happen because of unclear wording. Cognitive biases and psychological factors play a huge role. Here are a few key concepts that explain why past conversations can cloud new ones:

    • Confirmation Bias – We tend to interpret new information in a way that aligns with what we already believe. If someone previously thought a feature was implemented, they may subconsciously reject any message suggesting otherwise.
    • Negativity Bias – Our brains are wired to remember negative experiences more strongly than positive ones. If you’ve struggled with communication before, you might assume any confusion means you failed again—even if that’s not the case.
    • Cognitive Load Theory – When people are processing too much information at once, they’re more likely to misunderstand details. If a chat is long or involves multiple topics, key points can get lost.
    • Shannon-Weaver Communication Model – This classic theory explains that communication isn’t just about sending a message—it’s also about how the receiver decodes it. Factors like noise (distractions, assumptions, or past conversations) can distort meaning.

    Here are some practical strategies to prevent misunderstandings caused by past conversations and assumptions:

    1. Take a Moment Before Responding

    Before jumping into a response, step away for a moment—make a coffee, take a deep breath, or do something unrelated. There’s no need to reply immediately. A brief pause can help you process the situation better and respond with more clarity and patience.

    2. Be Clear, But Also Consider the Reader’s Perspective

    Sometimes, what’s obvious to you isn’t obvious to others. When pointing out an issue, make sure to provide just enough context to avoid misinterpretation. Instead of saying something broad like “This feature doesn’t exist,” be specific: “We don’t have this functionality on the PHP side yet, but I’m working on it now.”

    3. Don’t Let Past Conversations Cloud Your Thinking

    If you’ve been given feedback about your communication in the past, don’t let it make you overly self-conscious. Just because you faced a challenge before doesn’t mean you’re making the same mistake again. Each conversation is a fresh start—focus on the present discussion instead of assuming past issues are repeating.

    4. Don’t Assume Confusion Means Poor Communication

    If someone is confused, it doesn’t always mean you explained it badly. Sometimes, the information itself is surprising or unexpected. Before jumping to conclusions, ask yourself: “Are they confused by what I said, or just surprised by the problem?” That small shift in thinking can prevent unnecessary frustration.

    5. Stay Open and Avoid Defensive Responses

    When someone asks for clarification, it’s easy to feel like you’re being challenged. But instead of responding with “I don’t know what confused you,” try something like “Let me clarify—here’s what I meant.” A friendly and patient tone makes discussions more productive.

    6. Recognize That Improving Communication is a Process

    If you’re actively working on your communication skills, don’t be too hard on yourself when misunderstandings happen. Clarity takes practice, and even the best communicators experience occasional misinterpretations. The key is to learn from each conversation and keep refining how you explain things.

    Final Thoughts

    Work chats should be about collaboration, not confusion. By being precise, considering different perspectives, and keeping a friendly tone, we can all make communication smoother and more effective. Misunderstandings will still happen—but with the right approach, they won’t turn into roadblocks.