21–30 of 64 posts
Regarding all these alternative ways of organizing, what's wrong with a leader taking responsibility, delegating it where feasible, and selecting for team members to whom they can delegate responsibility with confidence? Taking direction or orders from a manager is only ever stressful if that manager doesn't take accountability for their decisions and directions. I'm not sure the solution to that is a new framework w…
and sorry, but if you don’t have accountability you aren’t a leader.
Regarding all these alternative ways of organizing, what's wrong with a leader taking responsibility, delegating it where feasible, and selecting for team members to whom they can delegate responsibility with confidence? Taking direction or orders from a manager is only ever stressful if that manager doesn't take accountability for their decisions and directions. I'm not sure the solution to that is a new framework w…
This is 100% the worst advice. It's a sign that you are a bad leader.
There are two components of leadership. Managing up and managing down. In order to gain a leadership position all you need to know is how to manage up well.
Because there is little need to know how to manage down in order to gain a leadership position you see a lot of incompetent leaders everywhere.
The quote above is 100% a sign of someone who does not know how to manage down. Yes you need to take responsibility. This is called managing up.
But Team members do need to be heard this is the most critical aspect of leadership and managing down.
Dee Hock, the founding CEO of Visa, described a similar approach as chaordic leadership. http://www.griequity.com/resources/integraltech/GRIBusinessM...
What a strange word to avoid using anarchism.
Regarding all these alternative ways of organizing, what's wrong with a leader taking responsibility, delegating it where feasible, and selecting for team members to whom they can delegate responsibility with confidence? Taking direction or orders from a manager is only ever stressful if that manager doesn't take accountability for their decisions and directions. I'm not sure the solution to that is a new framework w…
A manager should be the slightly less annoying customer that ensures customer perspectives are not neglected and work is prioritized in a matter that ensures project viability and success. And can clearly tell what he needs. Granted, that is quite rare in the industry. Especially those that can organize and take responsibility.
Regarding all these alternative ways of organizing, what's wrong with a leader taking responsibility, delegating it where feasible, and selecting for team members to whom they can delegate responsibility with confidence? Taking direction or orders from a manager is only ever stressful if that manager doesn't take accountability for their decisions and directions. I'm not sure the solution to that is a new framework w…
> The first thing I settled on was to have one publicly announced engineering lead per project. I did this to make ownership clear
It seems to be very close to what you are advocating, short of the leader being a manager.
If it's the leader not being a manager that you see as misguided, I'd raise two points:
- you need people to progressively get experience in leadership before becoming dedicated leaders. I am a proponent of people growing into a role before getting labelled with it. Taking ownership of a single specific project seems to be a good way to achieve this.
- a single manager overseeing a multitude of projects is good only if the projects don't matter or the manager doesn't do much on each of them. Otherwise a person focused on the subject will yield better results in my experience (and if the manager doesn't do much, they shouldn't take responsibility or ownership)
Regarding all these alternative ways of organizing, what's wrong with a leader taking responsibility, delegating it where feasible, and selecting for team members to whom they can delegate responsibility with confidence? Taking direction or orders from a manager is only ever stressful if that manager doesn't take accountability for their decisions and directions. I'm not sure the solution to that is a new framework w…
How about the counterargument that 10 heads are better than 1?
> Look, it doesn't take a genius to know that any organization thrives when it has two leaders. Go ahead, name a country that doesn't have two presidents. A boat that set sail without two captains. Where would Catholicism be...without the Popes.
Notice that throughout the article, the author is still in charge of the overall strategy, granting each lead their authority, requiring status updates.
Regarding all these alternative ways of organizing, what's wrong with a leader taking responsibility, delegating it where feasible, and selecting for team members to whom they can delegate responsibility with confidence? Taking direction or orders from a manager is only ever stressful if that manager doesn't take accountability for their decisions and directions. I'm not sure the solution to that is a new framework w…
The article suggests having a single lead per project. But each project is led by a different engineer.
You still have 1 leader per project, but everyone on the team gets the leadership opportunity and experience.
Regarding all these alternative ways of organizing, what's wrong with a leader taking responsibility, delegating it where feasible, and selecting for team members to whom they can delegate responsibility with confidence? Taking direction or orders from a manager is only ever stressful if that manager doesn't take accountability for their decisions and directions. I'm not sure the solution to that is a new framework w…
You make some good points about responsibility and accountability. But team members absolutely need to be, and feel, heard. Also, there's a world of difference between "managing" and "leading". Conflating the two is a root cause of many problems.
Exactly. I think the military distinction between command (leadership) and control (management) is very relevant here. One is setting overall enterprise goals and defining personal missions in this context. The other is checking resources, constraints, reporting, etc. These two are very different, hence the fundamental military distinction between the commander and his chief of staff.
Regarding all these alternative ways of organizing, what's wrong with a leader taking responsibility, delegating it where feasible, and selecting for team members to whom they can delegate responsibility with confidence? Taking direction or orders from a manager is only ever stressful if that manager doesn't take accountability for their decisions and directions. I'm not sure the solution to that is a new framework w…
First, massive disaffection with typical management is what leads to schemes like this. Especially when it comes to non-technical management, they are not equipped to do any of what you wrote. Not that technical management would be great or something. I am not fan of "everyone is leader" organization, but I am aware that contemporary management is not capable of all that much. > Team members don't need to be "heard,"…
I think this is a valid expectation. At the same time, it can lead to conflict and confusion if not itself managed effectively.
One thing we've done with our team that I think has addressed this pretty well is RFCs (Request for Comments). This is mainly for team practice stuff but also can address important technical questions.
We use a Trello board where anyone on the team can add a card and then team members can comment on cards. Team leads then review the board in a 30-min meeting every couple weeks to make sure cards get acted on or otherwise resolved to everyone's satisfaction.
Each RFC card is also assigned an owner from the team, a practical example I suppose of everyone being a leader.