Closing the gap: Technical Leadership in New Zealand
Growing businesses need growing leaders.
As businesses grow, founders and leaders need to develop stronger communication, delegation, development, visioning, and support skills.
It’s tough. And support for technical leaders is lacking in Aotearoa.
We set out to understand tech leaders experiences and what they need to succeed - for themselves and their startups.
The study
In 2024, Sprout People interviewed 16 startup leaders.
They included Founders, CEOs, CTOs, and Heads of Engineering.
Our research confirmed that a lot of Kiwi startups feel like they have a people leadership problem.
They are struggling to find and develop great leaders.
Aotearoa, we have a problem
Our research shows that many of us are trailing behind when it comes to good leadership.
People who came from or have worked overseas were surprised by the gap in people skills many startup tech leaders have.
This is not surprising. A lot of tech leaders fall into leadership roles as companies scale and needs change.
70% of variance in team engagement is due to their leader.
- Gallup, 2024, Q12 Engagement Survey finding
Organisations with the highest team engagement focus on developing their people leaders.
- Gallup, 2024 (meta-analysis covering 183,00 business units, 53 industries, 90 countries
How Kiwi tech leaders are learning leadership skills
The leaders we spoke to have found the available development programmes lacking. They are not created for tech leaders or startup leaders who have deep technical expertise being in senior, strategic roles, but have not lead people before.
Many of these leaders are figuring things out on their own. Learning by doing, or proactively learning about leadership by reading, listening to podcasts and finding mentors. It’s tough and it’s lonely.
On becoming a leader
It happened because it had to happen - when you’re scaling a business you have to. It was the self-realisation that I can have bigger value from a leadership position, [that] we could take on bigger projects.
- Startup Leader
Your manager is the number one reason you quit.
They are also the biggest factor in how enthusiastic and dedicated you feel at work.
We know this, but many small, ambitious businesses have not yet found a way to level up people leadership while scaling.
The leadership myth
There is a myth that leaders are born, not created.
That you either get it or you don’t.
That people leaders can learn to lead technical teams, but technical experts can’t lead people.
But that’s not true.
Some people are drawn to leadership or find it easier, but leadership is a skill like any other. Doing it well takes time, interest, continuous learning, and mahi.
I initially thought leadership would be a natural progression from technical roles, with more pay and no need to give up tech work. I learned the hard way that leadership and management require different skills. I started out in technical roles with a sense of invincibility, thinking I knew it all and couldn't make mistakes.
- Startup Leader
Developing leadership skills
A lot of formal leadership training fails. It has good intentions but fails to recognise how learning works, opting for one-off theoretical knowledge sharing.
Kiwi startup leaders know what good leadership looks like.
They say it’s:
Self-awareness
Confidence and vulnerability
Great, adaptive communication
Empathy
Vision setting and sharing
Say no and have difficult conversations
Ability to simplify complexity
Trust and delegation
But knowing what a good leader looks like does not mean you automatically become a good leader.
Successful development is built over time, by learning and then doing iteratively, much in the same way you prototype.
I’ve learned that it comes down to attitude and potential, if the attitude is right, if the ambition is right - take the chance. Skills can be strengthened or taught.
Kiwis need to see leadership as essential as technical skills like coding and agile. Skills that take time to build. Skills that should be learned if startups are hoping to scale through funding.
Making the shift
The best leaders
See, hear, give a sh*t - they will give you their best effort every day. Care about people.
- Startup Leader
Not only do the best leaders care about people, but the most invested startups do too.
A Stanford study of 885 institutional venture capitalists (VCs) at 681 firms found that the number one driver of investment decisions was the abilities of the founder and management team.
And the team and founder ability was often more important than the product or technology.
Technical leaders are skilled at problem solving and getting to the right answer. They excel at leading themselves - knowing deeply and getting things done.
As people leaders, they need to learn how to lead others and how to lead the business. To do this they need to start with a shift in mindset.
From ensuring you succeed, to setting the direction and helping others succeed.
Leaders recognise that this shift is hard. It takes a lot of learning and unlearning to do well and it can feel like a chasm with no clear path to cross.
But little can be big when you are starting.
Starting small by nailing the basics like sharing where the company is heading, supporting people to work together, and passing on the technical work to their team.
The takeaway:
For tech experts, what’s missing is targeted development that is made for technical people, technical roles and that genuinely helps them become great leaders.
For early-stage companies, the team can undoubtedly make or break success. In fact, VCs have noted that, more than other factors—including the business plan, growth potential, market size, and product—a start-up’s talent is the main indicator of whether it will thrive. … the best start-ups emphasize growing and developing their teams.
- Inside the Engine Room - Debunking the Myth of Scaling a New Business. Research conducted by McKinsey & Co.
Growing Tech Leaders
To help tackle this problem, Sprout has created the Growing Tech Leaders Programme. A six month course that brings tech leaders together to grow their people leadership skills.
This programme has been designed to maximise learning, and has been created for Kiwi tech leaders, with the help of Kiwi tech leaders.
Find out more information here.
