From Team Leader To CTO – How To Handle the Transition

The president of a company consults the company CFO over the main issue: the search for a new CTO. The current chief technical officer is considering quitting and the CEO fears that things have become too centralized during their tenure.

The choice is between stealing the CEO of a major competitor, offering a raised salary and budget, or promoting someone who already works at the company. As one of the company’s tech leads, are you in the frame for that CTO position? cto/a-cto-in-the-making-what-skills-should-you-have/” target=”_blank” rel=”noreferrer noopener” class=”ek-link”>Do you qualify for the job?

To accurately evaluate your chances of becoming the CTO of your company we must define the roles of Tech Lead and CTO and verify what makes a Team Leader suitable for a new, more senior role in the eyes of a President or CEO.

What is a Technical Lead?

Let us first define what a Tech Leader, tech lead, technical lead, or TL actually is. The definition proposed by Andrea Maietta during one of Codemotion’s most successful online events is: “A software engineer, responsible for the team and for the quality of all technical deliverables: functional application, reporting, documentation”.

A Tech Lead is a technical reference for his team members, and therefore needs the highest credibility. Their goal is to deliver code on time, and where possible to generate value for the company.

A second central responsibility is avoiding so-called ‘tech debt’, incorporating low-quality code into early production that will cost a great deal when it later needs to be modified.

What is a CTO?

A C-level manager, the main role of a CTO is gluing together all the relevant parts of a company by combining management, technological, and interpersonal skills.

The CTO communicates with all company stakeholders: teams, other C-level executives, and the company’s clients or customers, to maintain alignment between business, technology, and sales.

The role can be more clearly defined by looking at the various CTO ‘personas’ listed below under the heading ‘Four types of CTO’.

Interpersonal skills are essential

Management and ICT competencies, information technology, technology infrastructure and technology strategy are the basis of the skillset required to become a Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

A third set of skills – competencies that are normally referred to as soft skills – are also required, day to day: communication skills, leadership skills, creativity, the ability to persuade and collaborate, are among the most important.

These skills are often called ‘soft’ because they are not an intrinsic part of an established training path, unlike the ‘hard’ business and technological skills referred to above.

The importance of these skills in business escalates daily to the point that some experts have begun to refer to them as ‘essentials’.

The Four types of CTO

A complex job such as CTO is difficult to frame, as it involves a lot of problem-solving, but putting a few guidelines in place helps to better describe the role and the changes in approach that may be necessary to take on this position successfully.

This article offers an intriguing description of four ways to embrace this apex role.

A brief recap of how to identify a Challenger, an Influencer, an Owner, and an Enabler follows.

The Challenger

The Challenger has a broad technological vision and a clear perspective on their teams. This CTO works on external interfaces and portfolio management.

Managing teams using creative tension and veto power leads to improved performance, with additional scrutiny, external perspectives, and rigor brought to the activity and processes of the business units. 

The Influencer

The Influencer has only a low level of direct control over both R&D and technology. This CTO knows who the business leaders inside the company are, how to collect top-priority ideas from them, and how to empower them.

Their focus is usually on internal and external interactions, with particular attention paid to the external elements, and on how to get funded by the Chief Financial Officer.

The Owner

The Owner sees everything as a single product or service. All R&D personnel and budgets are centralized under this CTO – consequently they have complete control of product and technology development in the company.

This can lead to either positive or negative consequences in due course. The focus here is on strategy, portfolio management, and processing personnel management. 

The Enabler

The Enabler is the most managerial of the four personas discussed. Similar to the Influencer in their low control over R&D and technology inside the company, this CTO focuses on making the development function faster and more effective by improving processes, cross-pollinating ideas, and improving skill levels.

Their key skills include capability building, internal interactions , and process and personnel management.

Enablers and influencers, managing a low number of internal elements, are likely to be most focused on what is happening outside the company. On the other hand, Owners and Challengers manage a high number of internally-focused aspects of the company. 

From Team Leader to Chief Technology Officer

The primary characteristics of a Tech Lead and of a CTO have been discussed above. The CTO role has long been at the centre of all managerial theory, so the descriptions of the relevant personas are inevitably much more developed than those of a TL.

This article focuses on the transformation of a Team Leader into a CTO. Although there are some occasional shortcuts to becoming a Chief Technology Officer, this process necessitates a dedicated focus on the characteristics typical of a TL, and the changes that are needed when taking on the role of CTO – or better still, when a TL assesses his or her viability as a CTO.

The four key points for a Team Leader who wants to grow into a CTO are:

1. Putting your developer’s soul first;
2. Managing your own team;
3. Solving conflicts;
4. Mastering software technologies.

The five key facets of a strong CTO:

1. Demoting your developer’s soul from first place;
2. Managing many teams;
3. Avoiding conflicts;
4. Mastering a complex technological vision;
5. Putting your business brain in first place.

Most of these characteristics seem to be antithetical but are really two sides of the same coin. Let’s review each of them.

Where does your developer’s soul belong?

A CTO is a businessperson and a TL doesn’t need to be. A Team Leader is a software engineer with the soul of a developer. A technical reference for all their team members, a TL’s main goal is to produce all required deliverables on time.

It’s not strictly necessary for a CTO to be a software engineer. What’s more, those who take on this position need to put that part of their life firmly to the back of their mind.

A Team Leader who wants to be a CTO needs to be able to put what has always been their greatest strength firmly in second place

From managing a team to managing many teams

A TL doesn’t just lead a team. S/he needs to be the guiding light for their team. This demands both hard skills (in software development) and soft skills (in group management).

A CTO has a natural ability to manage many teams in different production areas at the same time. In some respects, as we will discuss later, the CTO also manages the board, and the other CxOs, as a very special team.

Managing one team is a slightly different thing from managing multiple teams at the same time: the first is tactical, the latter falls into the strategy basket. Being good at the former is a good basis to develop skills in the latter.

Solving conflicts vs. Avoiding conflicts

Another quality of a leader is being able to deal with conflict. The most common approach is to simply hope no conflict arises. 

When tensions do get high and direct action from someone in authority is needed, as any leader is the ‘local authority’ it can seem like the easiest approach is just to turn off the charm and get the situation sorted.

This is another tactical capability that needs to become a strategic strength should a Team Leader become a CTO.

Proactivity is a necessary element of team management, in order to avoid clashes over schedules, processes, and conflicting points of view right from the start.

Conflict-avoidance – or even better – prevention is an essential attribute for a CTO who has to communicate with all teams and stakeholders, including customers.

Mastering technologies

Perhaps the strongest point that a TL and a CTO have in common is their ability to master technology. A tech leader, as the name suggests, has a broad interest in high tech, especially if their main focus is primarily software development and deployment.

An interest in many different technologies is not merely a benefit, but a core competency for a CTO. This is true in an ICT company, and not only still true but also much more demanding as the CTO of a company in a different industry.

ICT will obviously also be a core interest in the latter situation, but other technologies directly related to the company’s business will also be of significant interest.

A CTO must be able to envisage and predict short- and medium-term scenarios to keep their company on top in its particular field of business.

A business brain

Caring about the business side of things is the main difference between a TL and a CTO. Business is the dark side of the moon for a software architect and tech lead.

Any discussion of a CTO’s role, on the other hand, always prioritises the need to know about business – a knowledge that becomes more and more important as your company’s turnover reaches higher levels.

As an ambitious tech lead, your business brain has to take first place. Attention to internal processes is a critical KPI or key performance indicator of a great Team Leader.

This is one of the basic bricks with which to build your career ladder, but much work and training may be required to move up the rungs if you are used to building with just a few bricks.

Which path to becoming which CTO?

Finally, a few words on how to develop each of the four CTO personas we sketched above. A Challenger usually has an interest in software technology and great soft skills that help them to manage a team.

The only CTO persona that worries about the team after the processes and ideas is the Enabler, the best at conflict solving.

The Owner is the worst kind of a CTO, because their tendency to over control eventually creates a significant bottleneck for which the only solution is their removal.

My favourite choice for a new CTO is the Influencer. Their attitude of investing a lot of time in group members, allowing natural leaders to grow and develop, is the best way to prevent conflict before it happens.

The Influencer CTO delegates well, gaining in the process some spare time to devote to improving their strategic skills and developing a stronger system of checks and balances likely to please the CFO, who is often the strongest C-level executive after the CEO.