After over two decades of building, debugging, and occasionally cursing at code, I’ve learned that leading a team isn’t about barking orders from an ivory tower. In fact, leadership is more like herding cats—cats who all have different favorite programming languages, opinions on tabs vs. spaces, and workflows that, apparently, “just work better” for them.

So, how do you lead these wildly independent (and often brilliant) minds toward something resembling organizational success? It starts by realizing that when your team wins, you win, and ultimately, your organization wins too. Trust me, it’s a lot less painful than it sounds.

1. You’re Not Just a Leader, You’re a Gardener

Some people think leadership is about being the smartest person in the room (spoiler alert: it's not). A good leader cultivates an environment where each person on the team can grow—yes, like plants. Each individual has unique strengths, weaknesses, and needs, and if you try the same “one-size-fits-all” approach, you’re going to end up with a lot of dead plants.

If your front-end developer thrives with creative freedom, give them some runway. If your back-end architect prefers structure (and an excessive number of flowcharts), let them build their castles in the cloud. When you let your team members lean into their strengths, they’ll give you better work—and fewer midnight Slack pings.

2. Winning by Empowering

Empowerment is one of those buzzwords we’ve all heard so many times it’s started to lose its luster. But hear me out—it works. It’s not about tossing someone the keys to a project and saying, “Good luck, don’t crash the server!” It’s about equipping them with the right tools, context, and autonomy to make decisions they can be proud of.

People tend to rise to the occasion when they feel trusted. Give your team ownership of their tasks and the freedom to explore solutions. Then, when the project’s a success (or even when it’s not), it’s their win (or learning experience), and by extension, it’s yours too.

3. Failures Are the Best Wins (Hear Me Out)

Let’s not sugarcoat this: Failure is going to happen. That one feature? It’s going to break in production. That API integration? It’s not going to play nice. But here’s the trick: Use failure as a stepping stone for success.

When your team members feel like they can fail and it won’t result in a "scathing email" or a “less-than-pleasant” one-on-one, they’ll take bigger, more meaningful risks. Encourage those risks and foster a space where failing fast is celebrated as a step toward innovation. As they learn from those mistakes, they’ll be sharper, more experienced, and ready for the next challenge. And when they succeed, they’ll credit you for not throwing them under the bus when things went sideways.

4. Your Team’s Success is the Company’s Success

Here’s the part where we bring it all together and explain why leading individuals to success is good for the company. When your team is engaged, growing, and empowered, their work will reflect that. They’ll be more productive, more innovative, and more likely to stick around (because no one likes job-hopping unless they’re updating their LinkedIn every six months).

In the long run, your team’s individual successes pile up into something bigger—company-wide success. That’s not just a fancy way of saying “we hit our KPIs,” but it’s the foundation of a team that continues to drive progress, creativity, and results.

5. So, What’s in It for You?

If you’re reading this thinking, “That’s great, but what do I get out of it?”—fair point. As a leader, your success is inevitably tied to your team’s achievements. When they do well, you look like the genius who got them there. And when the company thrives, it’s because you built a team that could not only hit the target but redefine it.

Plus, fewer headaches, fewer fire drills, and a lot fewer "urgent" meetings to fix something that could have been avoided. You get to focus on the strategic stuff—making things better, faster, smarter—rather than micromanaging. It’s the leadership dream, really.

In Conclusion

Leading individuals to success is more than a feel-good leadership mantra; it’s the key to unlocking long-term organizational growth. When you invest in your team’s personal wins, those small victories become your wins and eventually grow into something much bigger—an organization that doesn’t just survive but thrives.

And if that doesn’t convince you, at least know this: Empowering your team means fewer late-night deployments and less time spent fighting fires. For me, that alone is worth it.