[Chris is me]

I'm sorry, I made this post and forgot to submit it for several hours, so I'm sorry if this has been said by others.

Originally Posted by davidthefat

What would you say are the traits of a good or great leader?

I first think that the person should be a demagogue, they should be able to unite and convince people that they can reach the goal. Secondly, they should be able to plan out and execute the plan for success. Thirdly, I believe the leader should be good at their position. Honestly if you can't even program, why do you even bother being the programming leader? That is different for team leaders, I believe that they should be able to coordinate and have a great personality while having wisdom. The leader should know when to take the risk or be more conservative. They should have the ability to synchronize the team's process and put more emphasis on the lacking divisions. Lastly I believe the leader needs to be very respectful and never cocky, but always confident about the team.

A lot of those qualities are good to have, but not really necessary for leadership.

Personally I think a subteam leader in the context of FRC needs to have a basic knowledge of his subsystem, but not necessarily the most knowledge. More important than the amount of knowledge is knowledge of their amount of knowledge. A leader needs to know their limits. I would take that over confidence or technical ability any day of the week.

Motivation and organizational skills are a must as well. Confidence in your sub team, not necessarily. I would take a pragmatic leader over a confident, unless that gets in the way of motivation. The leader shouldn't be a downer and expect nothing out of their subteam, and they should definitely push and challenge them, but "confident" and "overconfident" are more similar than you think. It's far too easy to be overconfident.

Now being said that, do I really qualify to be in a leadership position? This year, even though this was my first year, ended up hogging the computer and the code. I wrote at least 90% of the years code, the other 10% being the team leader's code for autonomous. I do feel that I did not put 100% of my effort onto the coding this year, my mentor had to clean up the code during competition because it was spaghetti code. I usually do not do that with my coding, that showed that I did not care for robotics as much as I should. I am very OCD about people touching my code, so I am not sure if it is wise for me to run for the programming leader, me being only a 2nd year and my OCD, I would probably end up hogging the code again.

Please don't call it "your OCD", it's insulting to people with actual mental disorders. Sorry, pet peeve of mine.

I wouldn't say being your first year on the team would be a problem. I hate when people give people stuff for no other reason other than "seniority". I would say hogging the programming computer and being upset when other people do anything to "your" code would make you a very bad leader. You can't lead a team if you just want to do it all yourself. That level of micromanagment is the opposite of a leadership quality.

I'm being blunt, but I figure you'd appreciate honest advice rather than softened advice for the sake of being super nice. I don't think you'd be a good programming leader... right now. Hogging the code is generally a sign of arrogance, that you think you're the only person who can do the code right. Your "OCD" about it being changed and the following from the next paragraph

step back and let the others work on it first and just fix up the code after wards?

is also indicative of this subconscious attitude. Note the implication that because someone else is working on it, it'll turn out wrong and need fixing up.

Now if I do run for it and win the position, what kind of advice do you have for me regarding the leadership position. I got things done, when people asked for me to do something, I got it done. But should I take charge again and end up programming the whole robot my self or should I just step back and let the others work on it first and just fix up the code after wards? Now I feel like the second option, I am very OCD about coding, if they don't put the spaces or indent correctly I freak out and fix it. Thats a personal flaw. Also to me, it seems lazy or bossy to have the other programmers code the robot.

Task delegation isn't laziness. It will probably take more effort and work than coding a robot would have, especially because you could delegate some of it to yourself.

As for advice, I would suggest you remember your goals and work based on them. You're not working on a programming team with the goal of producing functional and effective code for an FRC robot. That is a goal, but not the ultimate goal. The ultimate goal is to inspire people to pursue science and technology, and depending on your team, teaching, engaging, and learning should be a part of that. When given the choice between getting the code done an hour earlier, or engaging more of your programmers, the choice is obvious.

I wouldn't define "taking charge" as "hogging the computer and coding the whole robot". That's the opposite of leadership. Taking charge would be coordinating your programming team to get the entire project done.

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Now here is where the problem starts, I am terrible at teaching. If you program, it is more about how you think, not the syntax. I code in C++ and Java, we used Java this year, which I personally do not like. Also I told my mentors straight up, I will use C++ next year. Now that I think about it, if I want to be a leader, I probably have to make sacrifices myself, Java is easier to learn than C++. I have 2 more years for robotics, which is not a lot, that means someone else has to step up after me. I think it is better in the long run to have the programmers suffer a little bit learning C++. I am already putting in the extra mile with my mentors, you know about my little autonomous robot project (check my sig). I think the major thing I lack is the ability to teach and patience. I sometimes even freak out (not literally) just a major facepalm moment when guys use too many if statements to do something. Yes, I need to mature on that part if I want to be a leader

I think you're starting to catch on a bit. You've seen a shortcoming of yours, that you're bad at teaching, and you're considering the compromises you need to make to effectively do your job as a leader rather than as a coder. I think the important distinction to make is that you see leadership as the person who does the most work, when that's not exactly true. "Going the extra mile" as a leader isn't taking a big project and doing it yourself; "taking charge" isn't doing 100% of the robot's code. You'll need to separate being a leader from doing the work.