Whether they’re tasked with building new, innovative products in a fast-moving industry or are primarily focused on providing clients and colleagues with reliable, effective tools, tech team members must trust each other and their leaders. Without a healthy, supportive work culture, tech teams can become disengaged, collaboration can break down and productivity can suffer.
Unfortunately, tech leaders themselves may be the primary drivers of a poor work environment, ultimately keeping even top talents from performing at their best. Recognizing and correcting common missteps may be the essential first step in building a thriving team culture. Below, members of Forbes Technology Council discuss common mistakes tech leaders make when guiding their teams and how these actions can undermine team culture.
1. Micromanaging
One way tech leaders undermine a healthy, innovative team culture is through micromanagement. This behavior fosters workplace toxicity, erodes trust and leaves employees feeling undervalued and constantly scrutinized. Over time, it creates an environment where team members lose motivation, resort to doing the bare minimum, disengage from their work and, ultimately, seek opportunities elsewhere. – Sivakumar Ramakrishnan, Vita Global Sciences
2. Fueling Competition, Toxicity And Burnout
Tech leaders hurt culture by fueling competition, toxicity and burnout. Instead, they should foster open communication, a safe space for ideas and work-life balance. Prioritizing well-being, recognizing burnout, leading by example, promoting collaboration, enhancing visibility, celebrating feedback and emphasizing mentoring create a healthier, more productive workplace. – Rohan Pinto, 1Kosmos BlockID
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3. Taking Interesting Work Away
You have to empower your team to work on the hardest problems in your domain. Too many companies simply recompose existing components and outsource or license the hardest work. If you constantly take the interesting work away, you’ll never attract the best talent nor build an innovation culture. – Pat Kinsel, Proof (fka Notarize)
4. Punishing Failure And/Or Discouraging Risk
Be careful to avoid punishing failure or discouraging risk-taking. When you fear mistakes, you’re reluctant to propose bold ideas or new approaches. This creates a culture where the status quo is maintained and opportunities for breakthroughs are missed. Leaders should foster a culture of innovation by creating an environment where teams are safe to take calculated risks and problem-solving is encouraged. – Josh Dunham, Reveel
5. Limiting Team Autonomy
One way tech leaders can undermine a healthy team culture is by micromanaging and limiting team autonomy. This can inhibit decision-making and discourage open dialogue, eventually creating a complacent environment that kills motivation and innovation. Instead, tech leaders should foster a culture of trust. They must encourage taking calculated risks and empower teams by providing a clear vision. – Harini Shankar
6. Failing To Be Inclusive
Failing to be inclusive when seeking unique ideas and skills leads to an apathetic and frustrated team. Likewise, an overreliance on certain key individuals risks single points of failure, lost mentoring opportunities and gridlock. Instead, promote ideation sessions for the whole team, fed by mechanisms similar to suggestion boxes, to avoid knowledge-hoarding and logjams. – Lori Schafer, Digital Wave Technology
7. Shutting Down New Approaches
Resist shutting down different approaches to a problem. Instead, let innovation emerge naturally by rewarding curiosity and keeping the team’s focus on the problem. – Craig Strong, AWS
8. Enforcing Rigid Hierarchies
Tech leaders can undermine innovation by micromanaging teams or enforcing rigid hierarchies that stifle creativity and open communication. Instead, they should empower teams by fostering autonomy, encouraging experimentation and providing a safe space for failure. This will promote collaboration, inspire new ideas and, ultimately, drive innovation. – Arpan Saxena, basys.ai
9. Overemphasizing Velocity Metrics
When you overemphasize velocity metrics and sprint completion rates, you pressure your teams to choose quick fixes over adequate, healthier solutions, leading to complex technical debt and workforce burnout. Instead, balance impact and quality—celebrate not only efficiencies, but also genuine people leadership, and give your teams autonomy to tackle systemic issues, even if it temporarily slows output. – Adam Ennamli, General Bank of Canada
10. Failing To Foster Collaboration
Lack of collaboration among staff and excessive bureaucracy in the reporting line are major factors that can undermine a healthy, innovative team culture. Organizations should foster a digital and innovative team environment where ideas are celebrated and developed into products. Team members should be encouraged to participate, share insights and contribute to organizational growth. – Nihinlola Adeyemi, ErrandPay Limited
11. Always Being ‘The Smartest Person In The Room’
Tech leaders can undermine a healthy culture by always trying to be “the smartest person in the room.” People who are highly technical and highly intelligent are so used to being correct that they can develop big egos and dominate conversations when there’s a debate or a decision needs to be made. Instead, they should listen more, talk less and be decisive when the time is right. – Armon Petrossian, Coalesce
12. Creating A ‘Hero Culture’
Avoid creating a “hero culture” where individual achievements overshadow collaboration. This leads to burnout, discourages knowledge-sharing and stifles innovation. Instead, leaders should promote a “systems-first culture” that values teamwork, open communication and collective success. Celebrate shared wins, encourage diverse ideas and prioritize sustainable innovation over short-term heroics. – Shrushti Kenekar, Global Partners
13. Failing To Recognize Each Person’s Contributions
A leader’s failure to acknowledge the value of every member of their team can undermine a positive team culture. If employees are not recognized for their contributions, they may start to feel unappreciated, leading to burnout and resentment, which in turn discourages a strong work ethic and a collaborative culture. A successful team culture requires that all employees are respected, supported and compensated fairly. – Douglas Murray, Auvik
14. Enforcing Rigid Workflows
Tech leaders often undermine innovation by overenforcing rigid workflows—where every decision requires excessive approvals—stifling creativity and agility. Instead, they should foster a culture of “guided autonomy,” providing clear objectives but allowing teams to experiment, iterate and own solutions. Innovation thrives when engineers feel trusted, empowered and free to challenge norms. – Sarah Choudhary, Ice Innovations
15. Overcommitting And Understaffing
We’ve discovered a great way to disarm your team’s power and crush innovation, and it’s scalable: Abdicate your leadership duties, approve lots of projects you can’t afford, and let the IT teams squabble over methodologies and manifestos while their projects go understaffed. This approach never fails to cripple a company. The course correction? Reconcile the imbalance between supply and demand for people’s time. – Barry Cousins, Info-Tech Research Group
16. Failing To Listen
One way tech leaders can undermine a healthy, innovative tech team culture is by being poor listeners, lacking curiosity and not taking sufficient time to understand, explore and proactively engage in innovation. What they need to do is the complete opposite. Be a great listener, have an abundance of curiosity and give sufficient time to understanding, exploring and proactively engaging in innovation. – Henry Patishman, Regula
17. Undermining Self-Confidence
Tech leaders should never undermine their team members’ confidence in their own intelligence. Tech professionals are sensitive to criticism, as they have a natural inclination to strive for excellence. Instead, leaders should focus on training and guiding their team to handle tasks effectively. Encouraging documentation and process recording fosters a collaborative environment where everyone supports each other. – Osmany Barrinat, SecureNet MSP
18. Prioritizing Speed Over Collaboration
Tech leaders can undermine culture by prioritizing speed over collaboration, leading to burnout and communication breakdowns. Instead, they should emphasize cross-functional collaboration, promote realistic timelines and recognize the value of teamwork in driving innovation. Balancing urgency with collaboration ensures sustainable progress and preserves a healthy, high-performing team environment. – Abhishek Trehan, JPMorgan Chase & Co.
19. Stressing Perfectionism
Tech leaders can undermine innovation by creating a culture where perfectionism reigns, making the team afraid to take risks or share unconventional ideas. Instead, leaders should encourage a “sandbox” mindset, providing space for experimentation where bold ideas can be tested without fear of judgment. By rewarding curiosity and risk-taking, a leader can unlock the team’s creative potential. – Maksim Strok, Stress Monitor for Watch
20. Always Making Top-Down Decisions
I have seen executives develop something like a “god complex”—their past successes have led them to believe that their decisions are always right. This results in a situation where all the major decisions and ideas come directly from the leader, and the team is there just to execute the executive’s orders. This takes away agency from the team and hampers innovation. – Dr. Sreeram Mullankandy, Elumina Health Inc.
