Transparent leadership beats servant leadership • Hacker News Board

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#221

Post by nrawe » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 3:34 PM UTC

nrhrjrjrjtntbt wrote: post #210

nrawe wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Coaching Habit is a fantastic book and is the right way to do. Managers don't exist to solve other peoples problems; it's vice versa. Managers are accountable for a problem, and responsible for building a team that can solve it in the most cost effective way. Their team members are responsible for solving the problem. Managers are also responsible for a lot of other things (tracking, reporting, cost management, r…

Isn't the definitions the other way around regarding coaching and mentoring? Coaching is about skills. Mentoring is about advice/soundboard.

Depends where you go, these two terms get used interchangeably (incorrectly IMO) and so there is some semantic drift.

If you were to read Julie Starr's "The Coaching Manual", or "The Coaching Habit", the definition is more or less what I outlined.

If you are familiar with the Leadership Continuum/Situational Leadership, the distinction from there becomes: tell/sell (mentoring), join/consult (coaching).

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#222

Post by jayd16 » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 4:13 PM UTC

nrawe wrote: post #202

nlawalker wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I was a manager I had to take a training based on the book "The Coaching Habit." It left me really sour on the role, and explained some of the behavior of previous managers of mine that I least appreciated, specifically that their approach to management seemed to be to just get me to articulate and explain my problems over and over until I somehow rubber-ducked myself into solving them myself. When that didn't w…

The Coaching Habit is a fantastic book and is the right way to do. Managers don't exist to solve other peoples problems; it's vice versa. Managers are accountable for a problem, and responsible for building a team that can solve it in the most cost effective way. Their team members are responsible for solving the problem. Managers are also responsible for a lot of other things (tracking, reporting, cost management, r…

Isn't "process improvement" just solving other people's problems?

Seems like it got hand waived by but it's the crux of the situation, no?

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#223

Post by AndrewKemendo » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

plomme wrote: post #203

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no good organizations, only ones that aren’t completely corrupt yet. Consider that to start and maintain an organization takes significant capital and energy expenditures upfront, which means you need to fund them from somewhere and ask sources of funding are corrupted. Consider: there are no long lasting egalitarian, distributed power, grassroots organizations that can compete at a level of social influenc…

I would love to hear more about your definition of corruption and why it is inevitable. From what I can tell it is that an organization with “morals”, meaning some sort of code restricting their possible actions, will be out competed by an organization without “morals”, whatever that might be. I think it is compelling at face value, but I’m not sure I see a world of wolves out there. Maybe I’m naive. I want to argue…

Who makes the laws?

The rich and powerful through lobbying and direct corruption. Here’s a link just from today: https://www.somo.nl/the-secretive-cabal-of-us-polluters-that...

So any “rules based order” simply locks in the rules of whomever has the most money to bribe politicians

There are no corruption free entities because they are starting with corrupt roots and grow through nepotism and political favors

The proof of this is dripping out of every seam of human organization

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#224

Post by psunavy03 » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 4:29 PM UTC

TylerE wrote: post #176

skeeter2020 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there are lots of sports coaches that were not good players, but they are absolute experts in their sport. For some reason we've let agile/life coaches convince us that "management" is the event and someone with customer service management experience has a lot to say about software development management. Ted Lasso is a great show, but it's not gonna happen IRL. Though the Diamond Dogs would be a great peer group for…

And plenty of great coaches that WERE very good players. Steve Kerr for instance had 5 NBA Championships as a player and is up to 4 as a Head Coach.

The point is that being a good teacher of anything is not the same skillset as being good at it. The Venn diagram overlaps, but not entirely.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#225

Post by ChuckMcM » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 4:39 PM UTC

CodeMage wrote: post #7

From the post: "The middle manager that doesn't perform any useful work is a fun stereotype, but I also think it's a good target to aim for." This is the kind of argument that makes people come up with middle manager stereotypes in the first place. In fact, the whole post is a great example of why middle manager stereotypes exist: it starts with a straw man argument and comes up with a "better alternative" that makes…

Very well said.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#226

Post by ulnarkressty » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

jppope wrote: post #25

Just wanted to provide a useful link on the topic of leadership. The US army publishes its doctrine for free and updates it somewhat regularly: https://talent.army.mil/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/ARN20039_... The doctrine is a no-nonsense, no-fluff document based on 200+ years of military tradition where the effectiveness of the leadership is actually life and death. Definitely worth a read if you are interested in le…

Is this really what they use to train commanding officers? It has all the hallmarks of a self-help book - vague advice coupled with some anecdotes - with a lot of bureaucratic fluff inbetween. How/why did the squad leader 'instinctively know' how to handle the reluctant machine gunner? Isn't that the opposite of training military personnel?

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#227

Post by divan » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:04 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #81

lostlogin wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you have been burnt, badly. There is surely a business out there that does fit your world view, though the pay and conditions might not. In my view, the need for growth at any cost is toxic and leads to all sorts of horrible behaviours.

There are no good organizations, only ones that aren’t completely corrupt yet. Consider that to start and maintain an organization takes significant capital and energy expenditures upfront, which means you need to fund them from somewhere and ask sources of funding are corrupted. Consider: there are no long lasting egalitarian, distributed power, grassroots organizations that can compete at a level of social influenc…

> ask sources of funding are corrupted

What does it mean, exactly? (I assume it's a typo - s/ask/all/, "all sources funding are corrupted")?

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#228

Post by ljm » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:06 PM UTC

denkmoon wrote: post #165

jvanderbot wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Can't" is not why people become managers. At least be thoughtful and say "Won't" (because they prefer management)

In my experience people mostly become managers because that's the next step to more money and there is no other next step to more money. Nothing more nothing less. They certainly don't have a sophisticated philosophy on management and being the best manager they can be.

I’ve worked in places where it’s much easier to promote someone into the management track than it is to create a new IC role.

In plenty of places in London you’ll get to senior engineer and then that’s basically it.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#229

Post by divan » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:07 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #223

plomme wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to hear more about your definition of corruption and why it is inevitable. From what I can tell it is that an organization with “morals”, meaning some sort of code restricting their possible actions, will be out competed by an organization without “morals”, whatever that might be. I think it is compelling at face value, but I’m not sure I see a world of wolves out there. Maybe I’m naive. I want to argue…

Who makes the laws? The rich and powerful through lobbying and direct corruption. Here’s a link just from today: https://www.somo.nl/the-secretive-cabal-of-us-polluters-that... So any “rules based order” simply locks in the rules of whomever has the most money to bribe politicians There are no corruption free entities because they are starting with corrupt roots and grow through nepotism and political favors The proo…

Have you looked at sports federations (especially in Europe, not in US). They're primarily funded by membership fees, some survived over century, and while they have some governance issues (like conflict of interest due to wearing two hats – regulatory function and event organiszing one), it would be a strong claim to say that they're corrupted by their roots/nature.

Re: Transparent leadership beats servant leadership

#230

Post by nrawe » Fri, Dec 05, 2025, 6:12 PM UTC

jayd16 wrote: post #222

nrawe wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Coaching Habit is a fantastic book and is the right way to do. Managers don't exist to solve other peoples problems; it's vice versa. Managers are accountable for a problem, and responsible for building a team that can solve it in the most cost effective way. Their team members are responsible for solving the problem. Managers are also responsible for a lot of other things (tracking, reporting, cost management, r…

Isn't "process improvement" just solving other people's problems? Seems like it got hand waived by but it's the crux of the situation, no?

As the manager is accountable for the problem being solved, they are responsible for making sure processes are optimal.

There definitely should be an onus on individuals and teams to reflect and generate their own improvement actions to that end. Scrum Retros are a good example of this. In this case, the manager is responsible for process improvement by chairing the retro, ensuring that the team has the info needed, and has the space to implement actions. Scrum Masters chairing retros can be seen as a form of coaching.

There are also times when process improvement means directly stepping in and directing the team to do something differently. This can happen for lots of reasons; one example may be a manager taking over an existing team under fire and identifying immediate changes needed to dig them out. I've seen several teams with entrenched mindsets in this situation where process improvement is directed rather than discovered.

Ideally, the team drives it, while the manager is responsible for ensuring it happens successfully.

E.g. there is a big difference between "Why did we loose a day here, what can we learn?" vs "From now on each dev needs to review every pull request twice per-day". Might be the same ultimate action, but in the latter the manager is solving the issue directly.