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Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
201–210 of 220 posts
Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
#202Most books on leadership give principles and science, which don't hurt to know, but leading is a practice -- an active, social, emotional, expressive, performance-based field. We learn to perform by practicing the basics in any field. Leadership Step by Step https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person-Others/... gives a set of 20 exercises that teach the basics of leading yourself and others. If you practice…
Self promotion usually rubs me the wrong way, but judging from this excerpt, your book looks like it's well worth reading:
http://spodekacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/spodekacademy-co...
Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
#203The 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…
> You don’t define how the subordinate should carry out the task – if they are competent and you trust them, they should be able to figure this out themselves.
I would argue that this isn't always the case. When tasking a subordinate you should also consider where they fit in a matrix of competency and confidence. If they are competent and confident in their ability to carry out the task then what you described is fine. If they aren't competent I'd give them the task but keep a very close eye on progress and be ready to step in with feedback before things spiral out of control. If they're competent but lack confidence I'd probably have them walk through their plan with me first. This can help them feel more confident in the approach that they planned to take. If they are neither competent or confident in their ability to perform the task I'd question why they're being assigned it.
Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
#204The 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…
One user had shared a similar guide for British military few days ago. Haven't completed it. But it does seem promising.
Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
#205Relevant discussion:
Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
#206Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Great point. Can you please indicate that you read it the linked text, and how the linked text emphasizes the criticisms you raise?
I understand where you're coming from, but realistically no one's going to read an over 100 page document for the purpose of commenting to hacker news. By the time they'd finished it, the thread would be dead for a long time.
Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
#207Earlier 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…
> You don’t define how the subordinate should carry out the task – if they are competent and you trust them, they should be able to figure this out themselves. I would argue that this isn't always the case. When tasking a subordinate you should also consider where they fit in a matrix of competency and confidence. If they are competent and confident in their ability to carry out the task then what you described is fi…
Totally agree - I should have unpacked 'trust' in more detail :-). It includes competence and confidence as you say, whether their experience is current or out-of-date, whether they have been trained by an organisation that you trust, and several other factors. If I was tasking someone who lacked any of these, I'd definitely want to keep an eye / mentor / etc.
Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
#208Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
#209Most books on leadership give principles and science, which don't hurt to know, but leading is a practice -- an active, social, emotional, expressive, performance-based field. We learn to perform by practicing the basics in any field. Leadership Step by Step https://www.amazon.com/Leadership-Step-Become-Person-Others/... gives a set of 20 exercises that teach the basics of leading yourself and others. If you practice…
Self promotion usually rubs me the wrong way, but judging from this excerpt, your book looks like it's well worth reading: http://spodekacademy.com/wp-content/uploads/spodekacademy-co...
Thank you. I appreciate your suspending judgment enough to research it.
If you read it, I hope you'll share your thoughts on it, especially if you do the exercises.
Re: Ask HN: Best book / resources on leadership, especially for tech teams?
#210Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not really following your criticisms on The Phoenix Project... Can you elaborate?
I didn't attempt to make a detailed criticism. Basically, it's the naive application of Goldratt's "The Goal" to IT. People have been trying to model IT processes on manufacturing for decades. Still doesn't work. The opinion of several engineers that I respect very highly who suffered from the author's consulting services makes me discount his work entirely. If you read farther in Goldratt, the sequels to "The Goal",…
Goldratt is excellent for optimising processes with well defined goals.
This is ofen true in business software.
If you want to optimise a learning process, The Principles of Product Development Flow is more relevant.
The two books (The Goal vs The Principles of Product Development Flow) give very different, seemingly opposite advice.