1. Wear a blazer and a torn jean. You can boost it further by wearing spectacles. All this with a big fat belly gives that desired first impression.

2. Suffix the certifications next to your name. Don’t be shy about it. You have after all, p̶u̶r̶c̶h̶a̶s̶e̶d̶ earned it.

3. Add eminent institutions to your headline. These could be your school of education or previous workplace. These days there is an even crazier cheat-sheet — do an online certification course in say, Coursera platform conducted by Stanford and claim yourself to have been educated in Stanford.

4. Focus on what is the market buzz-word in technology. And start talking loud about it inside your company. (The latest fad is AI and Blockchain)

5.Share articles on latest tech buzzwords within your groups in all forums — Linked, Twitter and even Facebook.

6. Stop doing the menial job of coding. You are an Enterprise/Solutions Architect. Say for coding, you lead a team of super geeks.

7. Be your Boss’s yes-man in your company. Proudly call yourself a servant-leader. But when asked, be sure to say the book definition of what a servant leader is.

8. Claim yourself to have always been successful in your project deliveries even though the reality is otherwise. Even when you hop organizations, they care not for your lessons learned but how well you can lie about your successes. Nothing succeeds like success.

9. Proclaim yourself to have always been working hard by staying late in office. Brownie points, if you say, you usually are the last man to leave for the day.

10. Always have a reference or two that can pour praises on you. The world hasn’t changed much — seriously!.

11. [Bonus Point] Claim your privileges for building a team from 1 to 100 or whatever number that looks big in the eyes of your gullible audience.

This is a parody of what I’ve been witnessing and continuing to witness in the world of software development.

These are some of the things you need to watch out for, to see if you have fallen into. Should you realize so, work your way to get out of this nonsense ASAP, for a better tomorrow of yours and those others around you.

There are a few points above that are not bad by itself. For instance, there is nothing wrong in a Tech Leader wearing a blazer and a torn jean. But then it is futile to think that you become a leader by imitating what he/she wears. In the same breadth, I say it loud that assuming all those who wear that way as a leader is foolishness. Stop stereo-typing. Don’t judge a book by its cover.

Have other dumb stuff that you have witnessed first-hand and want to share? Do drop your thoughts as comments to this post.