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

131–140 of 220 posts

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

#131

Post by ska »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #109
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…

The military is an org that has a chain of command in which strict adherence to orders from your superiors is a question of life and death. I don't know if it's a good idea that managers in an office environment attempt to emulate the military.

There are certain things about military command structures that don't apply outside the military, sure.

But people are people, communication is communication and at the end of the day, regardless of what else they are, armed forces are large complicated organizations. It would be foolish to assume that because your organization(s) have different goals and mandates, they have nothing to learn about communication, leadership, training, etc. from decades (at minimum) of well documented armed forces experience.

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

#132

Post by StudioElite »

Hey, I really like your contribution with such a great collective approach, I loved reading them, l would really appreciate it if you add me in your collection to lend me a thumbs up also and keep up the good work though. besides, I'll be reading them whether it would be yes or no :) https://studioelitechicago.com/

Thank you

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

#135

Post by mikesabat »

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.

Hard Thing About Hard Things is amazing. I've given this book to two people and both shared stories with me about how incredible it was.

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

#136

Post by saberience »

Bumerang wrote: post #18

Everything by Simon Sinek, but most important for me is "Leaders Eat Last" [0]. I haven't read the last one (The Infinite Game), but I've heard it's pretty good as well. Also Extreme Ownership [1] and Dichotomy of Leadership [2] by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. All of these books had tremendous impact on me as a leader and I highly recommend them. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/B... […

Simon Sinek has never actually led anything and is basically someone who is an expert at marketing himself. His advice doesn’t say anything new and is usually extremely banal.

He’s the classic example of fake it till you make it in modern America. A guy who makes flashy viral videos, has zero actual experience of leading organizations or teams, yet someone has acquired some guru like reputation at a genius leader.

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

#137

Post by grumpy8 »

gbersac wrote: post #32

The best definition of what's a good leader is found in the book "the captain class" : https://www.amazon.com/Captain-Class-Hidden-Behind-Greatest/... What's interesting is that the author have a data oriented strategy to find a good definition of a leader: he processed a lot of data to find which teams had really exceptionnal success IN THE HISTORY OF ALL SPORTS. When he found the 8 teams with the most exceptionnal…

hardbook starting from 899$, I think I'll get the 10$ kindle :D

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

#139

Post by npv789 »

Bumerang wrote: post #18

Everything by Simon Sinek, but most important for me is "Leaders Eat Last" [0]. I haven't read the last one (The Infinite Game), but I've heard it's pretty good as well. Also Extreme Ownership [1] and Dichotomy of Leadership [2] by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. All of these books had tremendous impact on me as a leader and I highly recommend them. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/Leaders-Eat-Last-Together-Others/dp/B... […

simon sinek is a motivator, and had no experience in leadership

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

#140

Post by lovetocode »

KKKKkkkk1 wrote: post #109
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…

The military is an org that has a chain of command in which strict adherence to orders from your superiors is a question of life and death. I don't know if it's a good idea that managers in an office environment attempt to emulate the military.

As a former military leader, the ability to lead is built on a foundation of trust and competence prior to combat. The Army leadership manual is designed as a framework for developing those skills. The military just generally has a higher acceptance of risk up to and including the loss of life. In war, death is expected and factored into the decision making process. You would not see such risk taking in a corporate world. Strict adherence to orders in a life or death situation is required but often those orders are entirely reasonable.

Leading troops in combat is as much a tactical challenge as it is a logistical challenge. As cheesy as it sounds, leadership skills developed prior to and during combat are directly translatable to the corporate world. A great military leader is equally capable of being a great corporate leader. There is nothing specifically in the Army leadership style that could not be applied to a corporate setting.

Post reply on HN