Why Tech Leaders Should Still Write Code

I want technical leaders to have some recent experience of working in the codebase. It's hard to judge whether a process is reasonable if you never have to follow it.

Small bugs and contained improvements are useful places to contribute. Taking the critical feature can be less helpful if meetings keep interrupting you. The point is to understand the team's work well enough to make better decisions, while being realistic about how much uninterrupted time you have.