The Trap of Trying Too Hard
When I first became a tech lead at Dropbox, I was juggling two equally intimidating responsibilities: building a multi-exabyte distributed storage system and migrating our data off Amazon S3 with limited resources on an extremely tight timeframe, and figuring out what I was actually supposed to do as a tech lead. The second turned out to be by far the harder problem.
Things went fine while the team was small, but as we grew, I started to notice what felt like an imbalance. It seemed like the same few people were always the ones jumping on emergencies, responding to alerts, fixing dashboards, and keeping the lights on. I was one of those people, and I was getting frustrated. My solution was to "show people how it's done"—to demonstrate the level of commitment I expected by modeling it myself.
I threw myself into leading by example: answering every page alert instantly, replying to emails first, fielding questions nonstop on chat. I was working 16-hour days and burning out, and the team wasn't following my lead. In fact, the harder I tried, the worse things got. The more I jumped in, the more the team felt crowded out. They began to wonder if it was just easier for me to solve issues myself, felt increasingly micromanaged and disempowered, and started to suspect I simply liked working all the time. Less got done, morale dropped, and I was exhausted. Then a more experienced lead pulled me aside and told me: "hey, stop trying to lead by example."
It took me a while to understand what that actually meant.
Setting Expectations Beats Demonstrating Them
There's a meaningful difference between setting a good example and leading by example. As a leader, you absolutely should set a good example—but trying to lead by example alone is weak at best and passive-aggressive at worst. Good leadership requires clear communication and explicit expectation-setting, and it requires you to take an active role in directing the team rather than hoping people will infer what you want from your behavior.
In my case, addressing the on-call problem required having an explicit conversation with the team about expectations and responsibilities. It felt awkward, but the team appreciated the clarity. It also forced me to examine my own behavior: I had to chill out and recognize that emails didn't all need instant responses and that the sky wasn't falling every time something came up. Codifying our expectations forced me to reason about which ones were genuinely valuable and which were just me micromanaging.
Expectation-setting ties directly into accountability—actually holding people responsible for meeting those expectations. A team of highly talented engineers thrives in an environment of accountability, not oversight. And accountability is impossible without expectations that have actually been articulated.
You Don't Stop Shoveling
Setting expectations doesn't mean you get to sit back, put on a top hat, and watch the team do all the work. Tech workers tend to be an anti-authoritarian bunch, and if you see your role as bossing people around, you'll lose the team's trust almost immediately.
Expectation-setting is a necessary part of the tech lead job, but you're still a member of the team. You need to stay on the ground and do the work alongside everyone else. Being hands-on helps you keep the quality bar high, maintain a real understanding of your system, build empathy for your teammates, and make sure the team actually hits its goals. Plan on being the hardest-working person on your team—that's just what tech leadership costs.
The Takeaway
Leading by example doesn't work. Setting a good example is necessary but not sufficient for strong technical leadership. Acting like a tech lead means setting clear expectations, communicating directly, and staying in the trenches—but never confusing your role with that of a boss. You're a member of a team, not the boss of it.
