Experience 

In my recent interviews for a new job, I’ve been asked one question for sure. "Don’t you think that with your mere 3yrs. of experience, you might not be able to lead a team"?.

What is Experience? How do you rate someone based on years he lived? Don’t you think a person should rated based on his knowledge rather than his "years spent in a cubicle". And most of the time, I’ve seen that the guy who technically LEADS a team, is not the one who is labelled as the Team Leader. The fundamental property of a Lead should be  .. ahem .. "Ability to Lead". That includes helping his team to get out of difficulties, making them concentrate on their part and at the sametime, not losing the focus on the whole, and most importantly, to make sure that at the end of the day they feel like being in a good company. 

I’ve seen team leads with  n ( where n >5 ) years of experience, who dont know how to configure their mail client and how to "install eclipse".  Can they ever lead a team in the technology domain? I would like to recollect some opinions from the boook Becoming a Technical Leader.

Technical Knowledge

It’s very difficult to keep up with happenings of the technology, in case you are a technical leader.  But having more knowledge in the technology is not the mandate for a leader. The ability to drive the people towards learning things, is the most important thing. Because when you are in a team, the team’s achievements should be given more priority rather than individual technical advancement.  That doesn’t mean that you should inhibit the inherent learning capabilities of the team. On the contrary, you should encourage the learning, at the same time should take all possible steps towards maintaining the moral balance in the team.