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Software development requires servant leaders

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11–20 of 209 posts

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#11
post #2

In my experience it is rarely enough to just "lead" more thoughtfully, which seems to be what the author here is promoting. Software development does not just require servant leaders in the helping sense, but in the working sense. The best leaders in software and technical domains are also those who can write (either code or ideas) better than anyone else. They have the power to move the project forward on their own,…

> The best leaders in software and technical domains are also those who can write (either code or ideas) better than anyone else.

Technical and programming skills have very little overlap with successful team management skills. It's the very essence of the Peter Principle.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#12
> The idea of “servant” leaders has been on the rise in the agile community of late. Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term in a 1970 essay, but the idea is timeless.

At least in German, that term is arguably much older, going back to the Prussian king Frederick II, who wrote "the sovereign is only the first servant" ("The sovereign, far from being the absolute Master of the people which are under his domination, is only the first servant").

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#13

> The idea of “servant” leaders has been on the rise in the agile community of late. Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term in a 1970 essay, but the idea is timeless. At least in German, that term is arguably much older, going back to the Prussian king Frederick II, who wrote "the sovereign is only the first servant" ("The sovereign, far from being the absolute Master of the people which are under his domination, is onl…

Pretty sure that the word servant had its origins from Latin (servus).

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#14
post #2

In my experience it is rarely enough to just "lead" more thoughtfully, which seems to be what the author here is promoting. Software development does not just require servant leaders in the helping sense, but in the working sense. The best leaders in software and technical domains are also those who can write (either code or ideas) better than anyone else. They have the power to move the project forward on their own,…

> The best leaders in software and technical domains are also those who can write (either code or ideas) better than anyone else. Technical and programming skills have very little overlap with successful team management skills. It's the very essence of the Peter Principle.

Teaching skills are the bridge. That's what servant leadership is to me - not teaching in the "stand in front of the classroom" sense, but teaching in the "lets pair on this and figure it out together" sense.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#15
post #5

Man, the first part of the article hits close to home. Ik currently in a project where there's a combination of scope creep and inexperienced developers causing the work to take longer than expected. Business however is unwilling to move any deadlines. > When the business side “wins”, the developers end up in a death march. This is a pretty good way to describe what I feel like now.

The term for this is "developer abuse".

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#16

> The idea of “servant” leaders has been on the rise in the agile community of late. Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term in a 1970 essay, but the idea is timeless. At least in German, that term is arguably much older, going back to the Prussian king Frederick II, who wrote "the sovereign is only the first servant" ("The sovereign, far from being the absolute Master of the people which are under his domination, is onl…

Pretty sure that the word servant had its origins from Latin (servus).

I think they're talking specifically about "servant leaders", not servants in general.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#17

> The idea of “servant” leaders has been on the rise in the agile community of late. Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term in a 1970 essay, but the idea is timeless. At least in German, that term is arguably much older, going back to the Prussian king Frederick II, who wrote "the sovereign is only the first servant" ("The sovereign, far from being the absolute Master of the people which are under his domination, is onl…

Pretty sure that the word servant had its origins from Latin (servus).

It's very clear: the Prussian mention is to the origin of "servant leaders" and not referencing the origin of the actual word "servant".

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#18
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on what kind of leadership we talk about. Technical leadership: such leaders are often called architects. Of course they need deep technical knowledge. Project leadership: such leaders are often called project managers or product owners. They only need shallow technical knowledge and can mostly lean on their experts in their team. Human managers: they deal with personal growth and employment. They need eno…

I think that these are different persons leads may be one of the causes of a lot of the negative symptoms we're seeing in project management in our industry. If I compare the teams that I've been on, a lot of the frustration was due to the communication (or lack thereof) between the leadership roles that you've described. The best teams where were single people were responsible for all types of leadership - even if i…

This. The dominant way software teams are managed seems incredibly bonkers and is not the norm in any other industry I know about. In the "real world", you have a boss, and probably he has a boss and so on. In the software world, everything is "negotiated" and "consensus-driven". Totally different people are responsible for hiring, firing, promotion vs. everyday decisionmaking. No programmer has a single boss, they have many, often implied and nowhere on an official org chart.

I think I understand how it got to be this way, and from a long-term professional point of view, it is probably good for programmers since it makes them less "cogs in a machine". It's also somewhat similar to "real" professions like lawyers, engineers (the kind with a title and professional responsibilities and, in Canada, an iron ring), and doctors, which I suspect programmers will ultimately become, thought it make take several hundred years.

Still, it can be maddeningly complex and seems like a lot of the time is too much overhead. On the other hand, a team is an engineered thing just like any other, in that there are tradeoffs. Management and capital largely seem to prefer predictably-scheduled software projects with accurate estimates to fast iteration and low overhead. One way to make this tradeoff is to have several clipboard-holders on a team looking at metrics daily, and spending 1 day out of every 10 in "sprint planning".

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#19

> The idea of “servant” leaders has been on the rise in the agile community of late. Robert K. Greenleaf coined the term in a 1970 essay, but the idea is timeless. At least in German, that term is arguably much older, going back to the Prussian king Frederick II, who wrote "the sovereign is only the first servant" ("The sovereign, far from being the absolute Master of the people which are under his domination, is onl…

Pretty sure that the word servant had its origins from Latin (servus).

The Roman emperor was known as "princeps civitatis" aka "first citizen".

The language obviously implied the emperor was just the first among equals, although more a political framing than actual attitude held by emperors.

Re: Software development requires servant leaders

#20

Maybe. I think there’s all sorts of leaders and all sorts of ways and configurations projects can have. IMO the most inspired software is the implementation of the vision of one person who had an artists/visionaries clear idea of what they want to create, who listens to input and brings in new ideas from others, but has absolute control over the decisions. Servant leaders of software projects I’m guessing has the pot…

There's no one-size-fits-all management style. Evil megalomaniacs can also have success.

It's good to have humility, but that's true for individual contributors, not just leaders.

As you point out, if a leader is too humble, at especially at Big Corp Inc, products can end up designed by committee, an ugly Mr. Potato Head that everyone hates.

It'd be nice if success required 1-3 specific personality traits but they can't be correlated exactly. But this kind of "If you do/have X, you will succeed" articles will probably always be popular.

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