Leading by example
Today is father’s day so I thought I would write a personal (and hopefully interesting) story about my dad.
My dad was working when I was a kid but he wasn’t the main breadwinner – my mom was. She was also the one who used to manage all the finances. My dad would however spend more time taking care of me and my siblings (e.g. there was a time when he was working night shifts for us) and doing chores at home – he’s the one doing the dishes, cleaning the floor etc.
The interesting thing from there is that I always assumed that a father (or a husband in general) doing chores at home was normal. I never questioned whether it would be my role to do such chores, it just felt normal. It’s only until fairly late (in my late twenties) that I learn that in some/many households, the woman does everything.
This is where people just follow what they see – you can simply lead by example. For example, if you want your team to fix tech debt, the best way is for you/the leads to fix tech debt. The same is true at a larger scale: if you want your whole engineering organization to do
Being able to communicate well about such efforts helps but at the core, doing the work and celebrating it is the best way to promote these efforts. The easiest way to lead is by just doing the right thing.