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How to communicate when trust is low (without digging yourself into a deeper hole)
[article]
Charity Majors offers really essential practical advice for building trust -
Positive gossip
[video]
Luca Sartoni outlines how to build trust through "positive gossip" -
The art of subtle influence
[article]
Casey Rosenberg offers advice on how to lead without control -
Stop Making People Make Up Their Mind
[article]
One of the biggest unforced errors that companies make is pushing people into making decisions when they don’t need to. -
There is no number one tip
[article]
James Stanier reminds us that there is no secret or silver bullet to becoming a good leader and so we have learn how to learn to be a better leader. -
Don’t Create Chaos
[article]
Great practical advice for avoiding creating chaos in your teams -
Skills that make a big difference — Empathy
[article]
Adrian Hornsby paints a picture of why empathy is essential for becoming a better engineer and gives advice on how to increase your empathy -
No Deadlines for You! Software Development Without Estimates, Specs, or Other Lies
[article]
Dan Milstein offers a really clear model of how to have conversations which put uncertainty and risk at the center of a conversation between the developers and the rest of the business (instead of everyone pretending such nasty things don’t exist). -
Where we’re going wrong with developer productivity
[video]
Cat Hicks dispels some key productivity myths, and gives guidance on what to do instead -
Questions to ask yourself to become a better leader
[article]
Lena Reinhard provides an excellent framework to help you reflect on how you wish to develop as a leader. -
"We’re All Leaders” Is A Better Way To Work
[article]
Ari Weinzwe shares the power of working in an environment where everyone is a leader -
Measuring Engineering Efficiency at LinkedIn
[article] [BEHIND A PAYWALL]
Max Kanat-Alexander gives some great insights into the pitfalls of measuring and improving developer productivity -
Getting along with difficult coworkers
[podcast]
Amy Gallo offers excellent advice on the Women At Work podcast -
Get straight to the point
[article]
James Stanier's advice on making it easier for people to understand what you want is just perfect -
How to plan?
[article]
Invaluable advice on planning from Kellan Elliott-McCrea -
Reduce Friction
[article]
Minimising friction is key when it comes to helping your team succeed, and Ceej Silverio's guidance really hits the nail on the head -
An in-depth guide to everything you should do in your first three months as a first-time manager of managers
[article]
Lena Reinhard shares a detailed guide to planning your first 3 months in this role, and offers plenty of advice and a reminder of many of the things you need to be thinking about. -
Why loneliness in technology is a serious matter and how to support tech leaders
[article]
Amber O'Brien shares the reasons that technology leaders might feel lonely and how you can support yourself and others. -
Be a better partner to product management
[video]
Frankie Nicoletti reminds us that we need to partner with product management to succeed and ahares some great advice on how to do this in this 10 min talk. -
Use these tips to improve your executive presence
[article]
Practical communications advice from Jade Rubrick -
Staff Engineer's Path Resources
[article]
Tanya Reilly's list of all the articles, books, talks etc. that are referenced in her book "The Staff Engineer's Path" -
Leading Below the Surface
[book]
LaTonya Wilkins's book provides a useful framework for reflecting on whether, as a leader, you are building psychologically safe relationships with people and also concrete ways in which you can improve. -
As an engineering leader, should you be working with a coach?
[article]
An Ask Me Anything Q&A with with Cate Huston and Jean Hsu about coaching -
5 challenges startup leadership teams face & how to avoid them
[article]
Richard Hughes-Jones offers advice about how to navigate these challenges based on his experience helping leadership teams through this critical stage of growth. Scaleup leadership team -
Book summary: The Advantage
[article]
Sean Craig summarises Patrick Lencioni's excellent book on the importance of organisational health and how to to develop it -
Everyone Needs A Coach - Barry O'Reilly
[article]
Barry O'Reilly and Kate Leto explain what coaching is and how you might benefit from it. -
How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back - A Summary
[article]
Richard Hughes-Jones provides a helpful summary of Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith's book, "How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back". The advice it offers is valuable to everyone developing their careers. -
Being Glue
[article]
So much of most valuable and essential work of software development is not coding and this work is often undervalued when it comes to gaining promotion. Tanya Reilly provides excellent advice to both engineers and managers on how to deal with this challenge. -
Don’t ask forgiveness, radiate intent
[article]
Elizabeth Ayer's advice is spot on if you want to build trust and gain support. -
How to Hold Your Team Accountable
[article]
Dave Bailey offer's a summary of Jonathan Raymond's Accountability Dial framework to help you think about how you hold your team accountable. -
12 Signs You’re Working in a Feature Factory
[article]
John Cutler shares signs to watch out for -
The Power of Small Wins
[article]
Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer's research shows that progress in meaningful work boosts your inner work life. As a manager you can create catalysts for progress and remove blockers to progress -
Cannot Measure Productivity
[article]
Martin Fowler's reminder of the issues with measuring productivity in software development -
Rands Leadership Slack
[community]
This is excellent community of 20,0000 engineering leaders with over 600 channels covering every aspect of engineering leadership -
Software engineering practices to improve management
[video]
Nicky Thompson gives a great reminder that you can leverage many of the skills you learned as an engineer to make you a better manager -
How to Be a Career-Changing Mentor — 25 Tips From The Best Mentors We Know
[article]
All sorts of good ideas to consider how to approach different aspects of mentoring -
High output management
[article]
Anna Shipman gives a concise summary of the most useful book I have read on management, Andy Grove's "High output management" -
Failure is yours, success belongs to the team
[video]
Tess Cooper's talk is brilliant and advises you to accept that you are part of any failure that happens and be specific about the issues that you face. This helps you to work through them as a team and sets an example for others to follow. -
Who I want to work for
[article]
Keavy McMinn's reflections on the sort of leader they want to work for is a useful reminder that this is a good way to start thinking about sort of leader you want to be -
This is what impactful engineering leadership looks like
[article]
Jessica McKellar shares her experiences and gives an excellent outline of what we can aspire to be as leaders
Delegation and empowerment
How to effectively delegate and empower
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The Secret to Delegation
[article]
"delegating isn’t about making their lives easier, it’s about being a great leader and people manager" — Jennifer Clamp -
What Choices to Make — and Not
[article]
"Leadership is about making only the choices that you are best positioned to make — and not making the ones for which you aren’t, even if you are more senior than the person who will make the choice." - Roger Martin -
You don't "get" anyone to do anything
[video]
Matt LeMay's advice about how to cultivate your power by seeking to help, seeking to understand, and seeking to align around common goals is excellent. -
Letting Go
[article]
Roy Rapaport shares a key lesson about letting go, "You can’t make people do good work. You can’t stop them from doing bad work. All you can do is share context and enforce consequences." -
Critical Components of Successful Delegation
[video]
Spencer Norman's advice on what, how and who to delegate to provides invaluable guidance for delegating successfully -
How to Level-Up Your Leadership With Task Relevant Maturity
[article]
Kate Dagher provides practical advice on how to think about how much autonomy and guidance to offer your team members when delegating tasks -
Empowerment vs. Entitlement
[article]
Laura Tacho gives some great advice on empowering teams -
Why do leaders keep disempowering their teams? |
[article]
Kellan Elliott-McCrea reminds us that as leaders we need to "Find that path to being okay with being accountable, without being in control." -
Turn the Ship Around!
[article]
Anna Shipman gives an insightful summary of the book "Turn the ship around", an inspiring book about creating a "leader-leader" approach to running a nuclear submarine -
Who’s got the monkey?
[article]
This classic article is a reminder of how important it is to be explicitly manage who has the initiative and not take it on without thinking
Make time to lead
Take control of your time so that you can lead effectively
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How engineering leaders can better organize their day
[article]
"You can’t afford to overlook the importance of having a plan for how you should spend your work time. If you don’t, you’ll get caught fighting fires and dealing with unplanned issues." — Harry Guinness -
Three ways to make time for reflection as an engineering leader
[article]
Pat Kua on the importance of taking time to reflect -
Focus
[article]
Henrik Kniberg says, "stop saying (or thinking) 'I don’t have time'. You have LOTS of time, so it’s just a matter of deciding what you want to do with it" -
The most surprising principle of good leadership? Don’t be busy
[article]
Claire Lew's helpful reminder that one of the easiest mistakes to make as a leader is to be too busy
Managing up
How to work well with your manager
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Managing up is not optional, it's essential
[article]
Flora Devlin reminds us of the importance of managing up and gives practical guidance on how to do this -
A Tactical Guide to Managing Up
[article]
30 tips from a wide range of experts on how to manage up effectively. If you are not sure how to improve your relationship with your manager then this contains lots of great ideas for change. -
How to present to executives
[article]
Will Larson provides good practical advice for getting more out of your presentations