I am a tech lead leading software development efforts and my role is a combination of Managerial and technical. I have to regularly communicate with customers, so, I have to play a functional role as well. My question is -
How do I clearly without offending, convey my role and set expectations to other functional non-technical staff as they feel threatened by a technical person in a lead role.
I'm not sure what you mean ...
Can you provide some more details:
How many people? How do you know they feel threatened? What expectations do you want to set? What is the state of your current relationships and what do you want them to be?
Without more details I think you may have a hard time getting an answer. - Sam
techies vs. non-techies
Non-technical staff can feel threatened by those with tech backgrounds/experience because of the seemingly uneven playing field (e.g. inability to understand tech concepts etc.).
In these sensitive situations and because of insecurities, I find it better to introduce yourself as a “liaison” and explain your role and what is expected of you, your team, their role in the team, etc. Avoid tech talk & jargon.
Finally it's critical to put non-tech staff at ease by not only acting as the LEAD guide through this project (handling both tech & non-tech, answering questions, etc.) but also by clearly showing what value they add (to the project) &, if applicable, how “tech” is not an important part of their role (YOU & the rest of the team have their back).
Good Luck!
Establishing role and setting expectations
This topic probably belongs in one of the sections under Management Help.
Can you provide some specifics around the following questions?
1. Is your role new or established? (ie are you replacing someone or forming a new team?)
2. If your role is established, what are you changing that could cause offense? Are you proposing to grow the responsibilities, or re-assert them in some way?
3. Are the folks you are trying to influence under your boss, or one of your boss's peers?
Depending on your answers to those questions, I would suggest the following:
1. Document your responsibilities, and brief your boss... make sure you are both on the same page. If the responsibilities for your role are already documented somewhere, then make sure to highlight any differences... any changes you are proposing. If your predecessor simply did not assert some of these responsibilities, highlight those for your boss and discuss the impact of re-asserting those responsibilities.
2. Devise strategies with your boss to socialize any changes with her/his peers and your peers. You may want your boss to informally socialize them in her/his peer one on ones. You may then want to socialize the changes with your peers in one on ones. You may subsequently want to make the changes an agenda item at a team staff meeting or a project meeting depending on the context.
3. Make sure everyone understands why you are making the changes... should be related back to expected improvements in team performance.
4. If you are re-asserting responsibilities that your predecessor had neglected, delegated, or relegated, make sure everyone is clear that you are taking those responsibilities back over, and why. It may be especially important for your boss and her/his peers to be involved in this case.
If none of those apply, then you must be simply taking over where everyone already knows and expects what you are doing. In that case, there is really no change, and you simply need to exert the confidence to do your job.
This is a great opportunity for you to get coaching from your boss and other mentors. There are a lots of Manager Tools and Career Tools podcasts you should listen to around this... use the search function and specify podcasts.
John