Don't Ask Me Commands

I’ve noticed that some team leads (who are often placed in such a position due to their technical prowess, rather than any leadership ability) have a tendency to ask questions when they really want to tell me to do something. For instance:

So, are we going to have the FooBar done by Monday?

My response to that question will be based upon my current set of priorities, and very well may be “No.”. Now, if you said

Make sure FooBar is done by Monday.

then I will adjust my schedule accordingly.

From a programming perspective, questions are effect-free. If you call, say, piano.tuned? (or piano.getTuned()), no instance variables in piano should be modified!

So, if/when you lead a team, no matter how small, please grow enough balls to tell someone when you want something.