Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 220 posts

Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

#121

Post by ckosidows »

KineticLensman wrote: post #92
charliepark wrote: post #51

The US Army has an exceptionally well-crafted field manual on leadership. No fluff, but also no chest-thumping. It's honestly the best resource I've ever seen on what constitutes a good leader, how good leaders are developed, and how good leaders develop their teams. Being a DOD publication, it's in the public domain: https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/misc/doctrine/CD... I can't stress enough how excellent…

I don’t have a reference available but the concept of ‘Mission Command’ used by the UK Army amongst others contains the best and most succinct description I’ve seen of how to delegate a task to a subordinate. And is perfectly suited to many civilian situations as well. From memory, and paraphrasing, it boils down to State what you, as the leader, are trying to achieve, and why ('the big picture') State what you want…

This is actually addressed in a rather identical manner in _The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People_ by Stephen Covey. He talks about giving his son a task, outlining success and failure outcomes, and providing constraints and boundaries.

Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

#122

Post by ChuckMcM »

I liked Bossidy's "Execution" and "Facing Reality", like all such books they wander a bit but they have some good insights. "Managing Humans" was okay but I guess I may have come to it a bit later in my managing experience so it seemed pretty obvious. "The 5 dysfunctions of the team" is useful for understanding how to look at root causes of teams that become dysfunctional, can be depressing when you recognize your own team in its pages :-). And not a management book per se but "The Sociopath Next Door" was a useful read because it better helped me understand and identify people who were very different than I am in terms of their emotional investment in things.

Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

#123

Post by caust1c »

leothekim wrote: post #3

Try "The Manager's Path" by Camille Fournier. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920056843.do

I read both this and "The Making of a Manager", and I've got to say, "The Making of a Manager" has much better advice and is a lot easier to act on than what Manager's Path gives.

I think the primary difference is what point in their careers the book was written. Julie wrote the book early in her career while Camille has been in upper management for some time meaning that she's more distant from the challenges of becoming a first time manager.

And despite Julie's only experience being at Facebook, I still found the advice widely applicable.

Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

#124

Post by slough228 »

gleb wrote: post #104
KineticLensman wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have a reference available but the concept of ‘Mission Command’ used by the UK Army amongst others contains the best and most succinct description I’ve seen of how to delegate a task to a subordinate. And is perfectly suited to many civilian situations as well. From memory, and paraphrasing, it boils down to State what you, as the leader, are trying to achieve, and why ('the big picture') State what you want…

This is great. Would love to read a longer version from where this comes from.

There is a dedicated publication on mission command here https://usacac.army.mil/sites/default/files/misc/doctrine/CD...

Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

#125

Post by tlapinsk »

Not specific to just tech teams, but I loved The Outsiders: Eight Unconventional CEOs and Their Radically Rational Blueprint for Success by William Thorndike. So many great notes about leadership and successfully running a business in general.

https://www.amazon.com/Outsiders-Unconventional-Radically-Ra...

Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

#126

Post by darkerside »

Gene_Parmesan wrote: post #83
gingerlime wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I must have missed something, seeing extreme ownership praised so much but I stopped reading it after a chapter or so. The whole macho thing didn’t jive and I’m struggling to find parallels to ordinary life. Lives aren’t at stake for 99.9999% of work out there. The whole military hierarchy and all the idealization doesn’t exist in normal contexts. Leaders aren’t trusted implicitly always or “lives are at stake”. So h…

Corporate business leaders here in America tend to be obsessed with trying to apply military-style terminology and doctrines to their business. In their minds, business is war, and "lives are at stake" gets translated to either "jobs are at stake" or "revenue is at stake," depending on the person. There are so many war-isms in business it's impossible to list them all. "In the trenches," "boots on the ground," framin…

> The military demands that soldiers immediately and unquestioningly follow commands given by their superiors (particularly during combat).

This doesn't jive with my understanding of US military (or human nature). Out of combat, a top-down command and control hierarchy leads to poor decision making by troops on the ground. A general can't and shouldn't make decisions on day-to-day operations at the platoon-level.

In combat, certainly the stakes are higher, and lives are on the line. If anything, that means trust plays MORE of a role than hierarchy. If a leader I don't trust tells me to do something that seems wrong and reckless enough to get me killed, I'm not going to do it. I'd rather get court martialed back home than die in the dirt. It's all about trust. If the leader has earned trust, I'll know that they have the bigger picture, and what seems wrong to me now makes sense in some way I can't see from where I am. And of course, it's not all black and white, these are matters of degree, including measuring the desperation and force in the tone of an order.

Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

#127

Post by stronglikedan »

carapace wrote: post #91

The best book on leadership IMO is the Tao Te Ching, Ch. 17. It's very short, about ten lines, but it contains all that you need to know. The final verse, especially, destroys or subsumes pretty much all concepts of leadership. YMMV: http://taoteching.org.uk/chapter17.html http://www.egreenway.com/taoism/ttclz17.htm https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching-laotzu/taoteching-17.htm https://taoteching.daodejing.org/17.htm h…

But that's only the "what", and not the "how", no?

Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

#128

Post by darkerside »

karl11 wrote: post #85

High Output Management by Andy Grove, Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink & The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz would be my top 3.

I'm sad to have to scroll down so far to see High Output Management. Timeless principles that boil down the ABCs of being an effective manager. No bells and whistles. This is a must-read for any new manager.

Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?

#130

Post by shantly »

stronglikedan wrote: post #127
carapace wrote: post #91

The best book on leadership IMO is the Tao Te Ching, Ch. 17. It's very short, about ten lines, but it contains all that you need to know. The final verse, especially, destroys or subsumes pretty much all concepts of leadership. YMMV: http://taoteching.org.uk/chapter17.html http://www.egreenway.com/taoism/ttclz17.htm https://www.taoistic.com/taoteching-laotzu/taoteching-17.htm https://taoteching.daodejing.org/17.htm h…

But that's only the "what", and not the "how", no?

Bit like if someone asks you to teach them to paint and you show them a Monet and go "like that!", yeah.
Post reply on HN