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Ask HN: What makes a good technical leader – any recommended books?

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Re: Ask HN: What makes a good technical leader – any recommended books?

#111

Post by cybadger »

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #45

Read/listen to https://www.manager-tools.com/ they posit that all good managers do these four things in abundance: 1. 1 on 1's (which are for the benefit of the direct report not the boss) weekly for 30 minutes - 15 minutes for you, 15 minutes for the direct report. 2. Giving feedback both good and bad in a constructive way 3. Providing coaching and context to the reports work 4. Tactical delegation of tasks both tha…

I second the recommendation for Manager Tools. Start with the "Basics" casts on one-on-ones, feedback, coaching, and delegation to get up to speed. Their book The Effective Manager by Mark Horstman is a great place to start, too.

The podcast was super helpful to me in transitioning from IC to management.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good technical leader – any recommended books?

#112

Post by kablamo »

Leadership:

- Turn The Ship Around (Marquet) - make everyone a leader - The Effective Engineer (Lau) - leadership for engineers - Leadership, Strategy, and Tactics (Jocko) - leadership in military/business - Good To Great (Collins) - good companies vs great ones

How to get better at everything:

- Mindset (Dwek) - growth vs fixed mindset - Atomic Habits (Clear) - automate good decisions w/habits - Change Your Habits, Change your life (Corley) - data driven selection of which habits matter - Ultralearning (Young) - how to learn anything faster - Anything You Want (Sivers)

How to talk to humans

- Difficult Conversations (Stone) - how to talk to humans - Never Split the Difference (Voss) - every conversation is a negotiation - Death By Meeting (Lencioni) - short fable - anything else by Patrick Lencioni

Prioritization and focus:

- The One Thing (Keller) - prioritization - Deep Work (Calport) - focus - Indistractable (Li) - focus

See also anything by: Jason Friedman, Jim Collins, Patrick Lencioni, Peter Drucker and biographies in general

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good technical leader – any recommended books?

#113

Post by njwi332 »

goopthink wrote: post #22

1. "An Elegant Puzzle - Systems of Engineering Management" by Will Larson. His blog & "Staff Eng" posts are helpful as well. https://lethain.com/tags/staff-eng/ 2. "The Phoenix Project", "The Unicorn Project" (novels), and "DevOps Handbook" by Eugene Kim, on how different parts of a tech + non-tech organization come and work together. 3. "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove on overall technical management. 4. "Me…

Start with why is garbage. Just watch the TED talk - the main idea there is fine, but there's absolutely nothing extra in the book that isn't covered in the TED talk, it's just a cash grab

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good technical leader – any recommended books?

#114

Post by senthil_rajasek »

throwaheyy wrote: post #110
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People did walk away eventually. But not immediately because when you have a family, for instance, you can't leave a job without making sure you have health insurance etc., People eventually left once they found other jobs.

If you’re otherwise a productive employee you can just say no too, and dare them to fire you.

"daring" your employer is not a wise career advice.

Re: Ask HN: What makes a good technical leader – any recommended books?

#115

Post by throwaheyy »

senthil_rajasek wrote: post #114
throwaheyy wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you’re otherwise a productive employee you can just say no too, and dare them to fire you.

"daring" your employer is not a wise career advice.

“If you’re otherwise a productive employee”.
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