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

Just in general I want to commend you for taking the time and energy to learn about this. It's a tragedy of the modern world that highly skilled people tend to be promoted into management roles and then stagnate, so that many tech organisations end up with people who are great at their specialism and terrible at managing people in managerial roles. Taking the initiative to really try to understand and excel at management is going to benefit not just you, but everyone who works with you. Bravo.

1: https://www.pon.harvard.edu/category/research_projects/harva...

What they want is important. This could be a way to recognize that you are great without giving you architecture power, they want you to continue to do what you are doing no more (this is unlikely but be aware of it). They may want you to write a little less code and turn some of the "lesser" developers into a 10x developer. They may want to give you permission and power to re-architect the system so it will work for the future. They may want you to spend all your time estimating effort so they can decide which interesting project is worth doing. This may be the title they give to the boss of small teams and you no longer do technical work.

What is best for the company/project is sometimes different. Sometimes that means what you need to do to make a success is different from what they think. If so this is tricky ground that will either get you fired for not doing you job, or a great promotion for saving the company. More likely you have options in your position and so you need to figure out which option is worth spending your time on and which are less useful for your company now. There are interesting tools that won't solve your biggest problems even though they would make some other lesser problems better, choose wisely what to spend your time on.

Last where do you want to be in the future. Within the above you have choices. If you are interested in something not the most important thing to work on you need to decide how much to focus on each. (different situations have different answers, sometimes you have to focus on the important things, others you can only give it a little attention and that is good enough) sometimes you will refuse the promotion. Sometimes you will decide what is best for the company is best for you. Sometimes you take the promotion but need to focus on your personal life to ensure the job doesn't kill it, other times they are compatible. Sometimes you realize you are in the wrong job.

1. Is a good coach / Supports career discussions and discusses performance

"Leader As Coach: Strategies for Coaching & Developing Others" by Mary Dee Hicks and David Peterson. An in-depth, very practical manual on how to coach your reports according to their specific needs and personalities.

"Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High" by Kerry Patterson et al. Helps you prepare and approach difficult conversations with empathy. Especially useful for performance conversations.

2. Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and well-being

"The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable" by Patrick Lencioni. If there is one book to read about team dynamics, this is the one.

"First, Break All the Rules" by Marcus Buckingham. Slightly more general than the 5 dysfunctions, but with a lot of good content about psychological safety and what makes team work.

3. Has a clear vision & strategy / is a good communicator

"High output management" by Andy Grove. Probably the most famous book on this list. It gives you a good introduction to setting goals, communicating about your team's work inwards and outwards. It also features more "system thinking" than the other books - how everything fits together as organizations scale, which is useful for developing vision and strategy.

I'd also recommend reading biographies and memoirs of famous leaders (e.g. Churchill, Marcus Aurelius). Strategic thinking can be easier to learn through examples and pattern recognition than through abstract / self-help books.

4. Is productive and results-oriented / has key technical skills to advise the team

A lot of new managers over-index on the people management side of the job and forget about the key responsibility of a technical leader: choosing a direction, leading others in this direction and delivering results.

"Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling High Performing Technology Organizations" by Nicole Forsgren et al. One of the most recent, well-researched books into how to measure the productivity and quality of software teams.

"The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and Organizations for the Modern Enterprise" by Martin Abbott et al. This book uniquely blends the technical, organizational and people management aspects of technical leadership.

I have tried other books, but they usually have too much to remember.

One other book I found useful was The Coaching Habit. It gives you a different perspective on how to deal with the emotional aspect of leadership.