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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?

#71

Post by lynchdt »

philk10 wrote: post #30

Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach - Jerry Weinberg (and many other great books by him) - a book I've read and re-read many times. A brief review here - https://blog.mkorman.uk/book-review-becoming-a-technical-lea...

I’m surprised this book didn’t come up sooner, it’s a fantastic book.

To my knowledge the only book mentioned here that takes the time to define technical leadership and present models of leadership suited potentially to different circumstances.

I might add ‘The art and science of doing engineering’ by hamming and recently republished by stripe.

The more leadership or management books I read the more inclined I am to respect Taleb’s approach of looking for old timeless material rather than what’s new or hot.

Most of what Gerald Weinberg has written qualifies IMO. Tom DeMarcos books also.

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

#72

Post by jaspal747 »

Put yourself in the CEO's shoes and see the entire company end to end. Then see how your team is contributing to the bigger story. Work on bringing business context to tasks. Help your team members see the business/strategy line of thought behind decisions. Once team members have context to the work they do, they are better motivated and bring in valuable insights. Always appreciate and bring spotlight on them for successes. Always take on the blame and never forward criticism directly to your team members. You are the buffer. Read books on strategy/business to gain greater perspective. Train yourself and your team in second and third order thinking. Helping them come up with all kinds of scenarios around their tasks. Finally, be humble, caring, and be nice to everyone. Cheers!

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

#73

Post by senthil_rajasek »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #70
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was still a new dev, I had a "superboss" in another city (HQ) managing teams across the country including our little dev team. I was new and did not interact with "superboss"-es from HQ directly. One day after a major release stuff broke in production. The company was losing customers daily. The "superboss"-es from HQ descended on our little dev team in a small midwestern city and ordered "Code Red". What it m…

EDIT- Seems the below came from a misreading of the OP text, But i cannot delete it now that I'm downvoted... Please ignore. > Skills learned in the military are for war, learned for conflict situations and applying them to civilian environments and bringing a war mentality or attitude to a workplace is toxic. > only adds to the toxicity of a workplace What exactly was the toxicity besides your choice to overreact (s…

>besides your choice to overreact (stay overnight)

It was not a choice. It was an order.

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

#74

Post by foo_barington4 »

maerF0x0 wrote: post #70
senthil_rajasek wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was still a new dev, I had a "superboss" in another city (HQ) managing teams across the country including our little dev team. I was new and did not interact with "superboss"-es from HQ directly. One day after a major release stuff broke in production. The company was losing customers daily. The "superboss"-es from HQ descended on our little dev team in a small midwestern city and ordered "Code Red". What it m…

EDIT- Seems the below came from a misreading of the OP text, But i cannot delete it now that I'm downvoted... Please ignore. > Skills learned in the military are for war, learned for conflict situations and applying them to civilian environments and bringing a war mentality or attitude to a workplace is toxic. > only adds to the toxicity of a workplace What exactly was the toxicity besides your choice to overreact (s…

>A part of the team had to sleep in the office for a few weeks.

So it sounds like OP was coerced to do so and it was not a free choice or an "overreaction" as you characterize it.

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

#77

Post by gen220 »

The classics are all covered in other comments. For some hyper-relevant content (the sand to fill the in-between spaces filled up by big philosophies and principles), I've found Will Larson's blog (https://lethain.com/) and book (https://press.stripe.com/#an-elegant-puzzle) to be really useful.

It provides tools for solving specific problems, and a language to discuss what's going wrong and what the solution looks like. https://lethain.com/durably-excellent-teams/ The concepts he covers in this post, in particular, have been invaluable.

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

#78

Post by kevsim »

stonogo wrote: post #54
kevsim wrote: post #37

I really liked “Managing Humans”. Super useful and told in a story format that makes it ultra accessible

This book left me with a bad taste in my mouth, as though it were written by someone who wasn't really grounded in experience. I'm not sure if the author was trying to convince me or himself. Perhaps I'm not the target audience, but I'd be interested to hear more about why you liked it, since it was such a disappointment to me.

It’s years since I’ve read it to be honest. I remember finding the parts on how to conduct one-on-ones useful at the time. I don’t recall feeling the author was unsure of himself (and he’s a pretty successful tech leader btw, currently VP Eng at Slack).

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

#80

Post by wenc »

The type of knowledge relevant to becoming a good technical lead seems to me to be "tacit knowledge".

Books can provide vocabulary and ideas, as well as ways of thinking about the subject. I know that Andy Grove's "High Output Management" gave me way of thinking about the corporate world that helped shape my interactions in the workplace and with senior management. There's no doubt that through great books one gets to pick the brains of geniuses whom one might never get to meet in real life, so there's inherent value in that.

That said, to truly get better though, I believe one needs to be apprenticed or coached by someone who knows what "being good" looks like. That is, to find someone who has real expertise (not just commenters on HN who've never managed anyone), shadowing them and synthesizing their expertise to fit one's own style.

Most people who are "good" can't explain why they're good (some can, most can't) -- so one almost has to study them up close. There's an old saying that "leadership is caught, not taught"... sounds like a tired old cliché, but seems to be somewhat true in my observation.

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