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Ask HN: What are the best articles on managing people?

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Re: Ask HN: What are the best articles on managing people?

#41

Post by tptacek »

davidg109 wrote: post #15
squadleader wrote: post #7

Just a meta-comment - if you're new to all this, it's good to know that management != leadership. If you're starting out, you'll want to learn both, and you'll need both. More practically, here's a fun blog where you can ask specific questions: https://www.askamanager.org/

^ THIS. Where I’ve worked, there has been a severe degradation over time of actual leaders, and an increase in managers who have no clue how to lead or inspire. One thing I have oriented myself to doing is being a servant leader. As I told one team I led, “I’m your bitch. Tell me where your rocks are and I’ll move them out of the way so you can get your work done.” And then I do exactly that. I’ve had to work miracle…

If this is your whole mindset, in what sense are you a leader? The person who moves rocks out of the way of the path for the army to march on generally isn't the leader; the leader is the guy (it's always a guy) telling people which rocks to move.

I'm not dunking on you; maybe you aren't a servant-leader, but rather just a servant. That's a great way to be: a servant of "the mission" (replace with whatever term keeps the contents of your stomach down).

Re: Ask HN: What are the best articles on managing people?

#44

Post by fifilura »

mft_ wrote: post #32
fifilura wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience regarding the servant manager is that it is really important that you also figure out what is in it for you. There is a big risk that your career stops at that - being a servant.

The best managers/leaders I've had in this vein are sufficiently recognised for their part in the performance of their team. Wouldn't it be a small red flag about an organisation if this wasn't the case?

Will your next workplace value all the effort you spent that way?

Are the servant tasks even what you want to spend your time with?

I am not suggesting that the answer to those questions has to be "no". But good to think about it.

Re: Ask HN: What are the best articles on managing people?

#46

Post by RyanHamilton »

tonydev wrote: post #39

High output management (Andy Grove) is a classic that I've found a lot of value from over the years — written in the 80s and shows its age here and there, but otherwise good for the fundamentals: https://www.amazon.com/High-Output-Management-Andrew-Grove/d...

+1 best book I have ever read on the topic. A short concise book with a number of good ideas that anyone working in a large/medium or perhaps even a small company would benefit from. So good, that I re-read parts of it twice already. My full review and notes are here: https://ryan-h.com/2019/10/21/andrew-grove-high-output-manag...

Re: Ask HN: What are the best articles on managing people?

#48

Post by dasil003 »

fifilura wrote: post #25
davidg109 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

^ THIS. Where I’ve worked, there has been a severe degradation over time of actual leaders, and an increase in managers who have no clue how to lead or inspire. One thing I have oriented myself to doing is being a servant leader. As I told one team I led, “I’m your bitch. Tell me where your rocks are and I’ll move them out of the way so you can get your work done.” And then I do exactly that. I’ve had to work miracle…

My experience regarding the servant manager is that it is really important that you also figure out what is in it for you. There is a big risk that your career stops at that - being a servant.

This is a strange comment. Everyone in a corporate structure is a servant. How you advance is by demonstrating that you are helping solve the problems deemed important by your chain of command. Theoretically this should be aligned from top to bottom; in practice competing priorities, communication overhead, and incompetence in the wrong places can greatly distort things. This reality leads a lot of folks into learned helplessness, and social climbers gaming the chaos to gain power they are not equipped to handle.

The mentality "what's in it for me" is toxic and shows one is not ready for higher level management in a large org where cooperation is necessary to do anything interesting. Better questions are "is my team working on the right thing?", "does my team have the right skills to deliver on that thing?", "what relationships do we need to succeed?", and last but definitely not least "is my manager competent enough to provide the support I need for my team to be successful?". The last question is the key one: you won't grow if you are reporting to a muppet.

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