Some technology leaders come from the business. Other technology leaders come-up through the ranks of technicians, engineers, and developers. For those of you in the second category, this article is all about how letting your “geek flag fly” can help you be a better leader.

You may think that being a geek isn’t an advantage, and you need shed your geeky ways to fit in with the mainstream business leadership crowd. While aspects of that may be true, I’ll argue that being a geek is an advantage to leverage. Let’s dig in.

Embrace Geek Culture

Geeks are more likely to talk about Cardassians than Kardashians. The geek sub-culture is real and it exists within technology teams. You can suppress it (because you think it doesn’t belong in a professional environment), you can ignore or tolerate it (playing the middle-ground), or you can embrace and encourage it (my recommendation). Here are some specific tips:

1. Decorate your office or cube (tastefully). Personally, I have a painting of Darth Vader on my wall and I walk around the office carrying my signature Rubik’s cube mug. Where I used to work, I had a 50” Death Star on my wall and a Lego Millennium Falcon, Lego X-Wing, and Lego AT-AT on my desk. Be careful to show some discretion. Don’t make the workplace look like your bedroom when you were 16. You can take this too far, so don’t.
2. Talk about geeky stuff in social settings. The performance of the local sports teams and the weather are safe topics, but they rarely make a connection. Leading like a geek means talking about the latest sci-fi movies and TV shows, personal technology trends, tech news, gaming, and other geeky interests.
3. Dress like a geek (with caution). Professional environments always have dress codes, but there is always room for interpretation. You can dress on the high-end of the standard, or low-end of the standard. When you are around just your team (and not meeting with executives or clients), stay on the low-end of the standard. Geeks like to be comfortable, and most (including myself) have no innate fashion-sense. You can even shop at thinkgeek.com for business casual attire with a geeky flair. If you can get away with dressing like a sci-fi character on Halloween, do so! The bottom-line is, if you look like a suit, people will treat you like a suit. There is an “us-them” subtlety that is communicated. You definitely want to be in the “us” and not the “them.”
4. Insert geek culture into presentations. Death by PowerPoint needs some comic relief. Why not do it with pithy inside jokes and memes from geek pop culture? It’s fun and will actually make your presentations more memorable. For more on this subject, see my earlier blog post here.
5. Don’t fake it. If you aren’t a geek, don’t be a poser. Geeks can tell. Be authentic. Not all geeks are alike and there is plenty of variety within geek culture. For instance, I’m not a gamer, and I’m not into comics nearly as much as most geeks.

Know Your Tech

If you are like me, you spent a good portion of your career doing hands-on technical work, but now you don’t. It’s important to maintain your technical knowledge, not so you can put your hands on the keyboard, but so you can relate with your staff and lead the technology direction from a place of competence.

Team members have a real deep need to be understood by their leaders. Make it easy on them, not hard. If your engineers or developers are talking over your head, then the proper response is to up your knowledge, not ask them to explain it to you like you are 6^th grader. That’s a reasonable request from a business person, but not a tech leader. You can take this too far, so don’t use your technical knowledge to micromanage or engineer solutions.

Being a leader means that you aren’t the smartest person in the room. Even if you think you know the answer, hold back. Leading from a directive standpoint with technical knowledge can do more harm than good. Instead, use your technical knowledge to steer the conversation, ask relevant questions, and challenge your team members to think about problems from multiple angles. You can only do that if you know your tech. Being a tech leader means you can effectively crowdsource innovation from your team members that are closest to the problem.

This Sounds Fun, But Why is it Important?

Culture and community matter. In general, organizations that focus on building a strong culture and connected community are healthy and successful. This article simply applies that truth to tech teams. Your overall company has a culture and an identity. It’s good for tech teams to have their own sub-culture and identity. This creates a sense of belonging and shared meaning that’s necessary to compete and win in the marketplace.

Geek Cred

Are you an über geek? Try me. Us geeks have egos. It’s sort of a side-effect of getting kicked around on the playground as kids. Now we have the intellectual prowess and we like to show it. Here’s some of my geek cred. Share yours in the comments below.

1. I can solve a Rubik’s cube in 5 minutes or so (not award-winning, but respectable)
2. When I was 15, I overclocked my TI-85 calculator so I could run my assembly programs faster.
3. The commercial internet started in 1995. I had by first website up by 1996.
4. I wrote programs on my TI-85 in high school that did my math homework and tests, and “showed the work.”
5. I have 3 Star Fleet uniforms.
6. I won an award for perfect attendance for four years of high school. Talk about a nerd award!
7. I coach a Lego robotics team in the FIRST Lego League.
8. I’ve spent too much money on Lego Star Wars sets. Not for my kids. For me.