A very good read and I couldn’t agree more on this. Here’s a quick summary of the main points from the article.

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Good techleads…

• act as team members
• also do “unsexy” work, clear roadblocks for the team
• broaden technical capabilities of their team; knowledge not concentrated in one mind
• have overall vision of technical direction and explains to team
• trust team members, recognize they are smart
• encourage debates, lead them, help members to come up with a path to a solution
• allow themselves to be persuaded with new ideas (don’t enter discussions with foregone conclusions)
• proactive
• identify areas of overlapping and possibilities to share work
• pragmatic, balance between doing right and getting it done
• details matter, code quality, reviews etc… are as important as shipping on time
• know effective communication is important, more than just writing code
• sacrifice personal productivity for overall team productivity
• constant communication with product managers and designers
• easy-going but assertive
• good tech leads emerge naturally, earn respect through technical competence and experience
• always looking for ways to improve
• boost confidence of everyone else on the team

Bad techleads…

• take only high profile tasks and expect to take credit
• optimize locally without looking at the entire organization
• believe it is more important to win an argument rather than the team gets to the right decision
• delegate, but then don’t follow progress (hope it will get done)
• only focus on being in time, take shortcuts, but increase costs in the long run
• think they’re only productive when writing code and think communication is just point of distraction
• do not take ownership of the product
• confrontational and aggressive
• arrogant and take pleasure in making their mates feel inferior