Disclaimer: an LLM was used to review this article and to spot non-English-native patterns and calques from Italian.
From May 2025 to June 2026 I took on the role of Team Captain (TC) (at work, not at home (yet)). My team consisted of 5 software engineers and me, and it was newly formed, also in May 2025. The Product Owner (PO) and I were both new to the role. Recipe for disaster? I'm sure the thought crossed some people's mind during those initial tumultuous days. But, as it turned out, there was no disaster. Instead, the team delivered its first new feature on time and picked up a new nontrivial feature, which is set to be delivered with no delay at the time of writing.
But I don't want this blog post to be about delivery: I'd like to share my experience as a people leader, especially what I think should be done to be a good people leader. Because I took on the role for just over a year, take everything I say with a grain of salt. You don't develop mastery in a single year.
In the company I work for, the team leadership role is split into two: Team Captain, who cares about the people, and Product Owner, who cares about delivery. I can't speak for the job of the PO, except via secondhand experience, so I'll focus on the TC.
The job of a people leader is very different from a software engineer's. As a people leader, you can't compile people from source code to machine code and you can't use a debugger to find problems in them. Instead, you can talk to them and you can observe how they behave. After spending time observing, you'll know your team better than most people do. You'll start noticing patterns: person A likes thing X but hates thing Y, or person B has the habit of doing Z, but they didn't know about it until you told them. With time, this knowledge builds to become your own view on each of your teammates; a persona.
A note of caution: don't force yourself to notice patterns. Been there, done that. If one day you see person C seeming disengaged and unresponsive it doesn't mean that such traits are part of their persona. Maybe they are tired from the night before or they are just having a bad day. Instead, let time be your friend and filter out the outliers. After months of meeting your team every week you'll have a rough picture of each person in your mind, and you won't even need notes.
Any fool can criticize, complain, and condemn—and most fools do. But it takes character and self-control to be understanding and forgiving.
—Dale Carnegie
People want to be heard and understood, but the exact opposite comes more easily: ignore and pretend. When someone shares their feelings and opinions with you, they are doing it because it's your job to listen to them and decide whether to act on what they told you or not. But the mere fact that you're thinking about it already makes it worthwhile for them. Try to put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Why would you care to share a feeling with someone that is supposed to take care of you? You would like them to remember and take action, or at least tell you why they didn't act, right? This is a small step that is at the same time easy to forget (can't say I never did) and that can make a difference. It's my definition of caring.
You'll have to be a little selfish, which may seem counterintuitive at first. Why be selfish if you have to care about the team? Because being selfish helps you think about your teammates' needs. Each and every one of us is selfish (When we are not engaged in thinking about some definite problem, we usually spend about 95 percent of our time thinking about ourselves
, Carnegie says), so avoiding jumping through hoops and thinking about what you really want will help the whole team. Do you want to be treated more fairly by management? So does your team. Do you want to be given enough fulfilling work? So does your team.
Of course, this calls for balance. There are things that you want and are specific to you and someone else doesn't want. You'll develop a sense of what these things are by, surprise surprise, observing your team.
I hope this blog post doesn't come off as proselytizing. I just want to share my experience, now that I won't be a Team Captain anymore.
So, what do you need to be a good people leader? My take: observe, listen, be selfish.