Leadership 101

Your ultimate curated guide to what is there to know

I have been reading about leadership, communication, negotiation a lot lately. There are some quality resources to learn from. In here, I will save you tens of hours in your search for good ones.

The content is mostly curated from all over the internet and I have given link to each resource I cited/taken screenshot from for your further inquiries and for giving credits, of course.

As a leader, there are certain thing you cannot change and change about a person

You can change:

• Ability to Step Back and See the Big Picture
• Industry and Technical Knowledge
• ConfidenceCultural Norms (within reason)
• Poise (Working with Leadership)

You cannot change:

• Raw Intelligence
• Emotional Reactivity
• Natural speed

Traits You Can Change, and Traits You Can't

Google’s research has revealed what makes a good manager

Ah Google, it is everywhere. While it is talking you as a leader get to listen. When they study something they really make and end to all discussions right? Here are 8 most important points the research has put forward about what makes a leader a great leader. There are a lot readings that have to be done to improve yourself in every aspect. A leader :

1. Is a good coach
2. Empowers the team and does not micromanage
3. Expresses interest in and concern for team members’ success and personal well-being
4. Is productive and results-oriented
5. Is a good communicator — listens and shares information
6. Helps with career development
7. Has a clear vision and strategy for the team
8. Has key technical skills that help him or her advise the tea

Project Oxygen: An inside look at what makes a good manager

Ask these questions to your team to know how they perceive you as a leader:

Google strikes again. These are the most productive questions I have seen to detect what a leader should have as soft skills. There is only one question for hard skill. I do think that if you are an engineering manager you have to have technical capabilities though. Not necessary, but a big nice-to-have that will help you climb up the ladders.

1. My manager gives me actionable feedback that helps me improve my performance.
2. My manager does not “micromanage” (get involved in details that should be handled at other levels).
3. My manager shows consideration for me as a person.
4. The actions of my manager show that he/she values the perspective I bring to the team, even if it is different from his/her own.
5. My manager keeps the team focused on our priority results/deliverables.
6. My manager regularly shares relevant information from his/her manager and senior leaders.
7. My manager has had a meaningful discussion with me about career development in the past six months.
8. My manager communicates clear goals for our team.
9. My manager has the technical expertise (e.g., coding in Tech, selling in Global Business, accounting in Finance) required to effectively manage me.
10. I would recommend my manager to other Googlers.
11. I am satisfied with my manager’s overall performance as a manager.
12. What would you recommend your manager keep doing?
13. What would you have your manager change?

Link

What are the variables that have no significant effect on team effectiveness you ask?

You must have heard about debates on workload, proper team-size, extravert/introverts team-members and other variables down there. Researchers concluded that these variables have effects but not that much.

• Colocation of teammates (sitting together in the same office)
• Consensus-driven decision making
• Extroversion of team members
• Individual performance of team members
• Workload size
• Seniority
• Team size
• Tenure

re:Work

You have 5 important variables for your team to work well:

You need to have a measurement/observation system for each and every one of these variables.

According to Russ Laraway, there are 3 areas that a leader has to focus on:

Stop Overcomplicating It: The Simple Guidebook to Upping Your Management Game

These are the golden rules of feedback when you need them the most:

This is by far the best article I have read on how to give feedback by Lopp. Firstround articles on management are really top-notch.

Lopp recommends a system called pre-PIP. Detais are down here:

Link

I strongly urge you to read the whole article:

The Best Approach to the Worst Conversation: "You're Fired"

You need to pay high attention to your coaching skills as a leader. Try some of these questions:

• Tell me more about this issue, goal, need.
• How is this issue affecting you/others?
• In what situations do you need to use this skill/knowledge?
• What tells you that you are lacking in this skill/knowledge?
• What would the ideal outcome be?
• What have you tried so far?
• How is this similar to or different from the way you have approached this in the past?
• What worked, what didn’t, what did you learn?
• What do you believe you need to do differently?
• What if you asked for exactly what you want?

30 Awesome Coaching Questions for Leaders | The HR Gazette

Speaking of coaching, it is not a tool to apply in every situtation

When not to use it:

• If you are dealing with a high stake problem and you need to act fast
• Giving a feedback
• Training a new member
• Managing a underperformer

When to use it:

The Best Managers Don't Fix, They Coach - Four Tools to Add to Your Toolkit

Modern leadership practices are must-haves for leaders who are facing the problems of quiet quitting and also the real quitting:

Link

44 advice for engineering managers from one of the greatest minds:

1. Communicate to every engineer the next most important issue for them to work on.
2. Personally fix bugs and ship features. You have to write code to remain an effective tiebreaker, but that’s where your coding responsibilities end.
3. Do make decisions when it’s necessary. Few things are as demoralizing as a stalled team.
4. Don’t shoot down ideas until it’s necessary. Create an environment where everyone feels safe to share and explore ideas. The folks writing the code have a lot of information you don’t. Rely on your team and you’ll make better decisions.
5. Most conflict happens because people don’t feel heard. Sit down with each person and ask them how they feel. Listen carefully. Then ask again. And again. Then summarize what they said back to them. Most of the time that will solve the problem.

44 engineering management lessons

Organizations are not linear and as manager you need to learn what complex adaptive systems(CAS) are:

The only thing that is certain about complex systems is that they are unpredictable. We cannot predict the future because the rules are always changing.

The brain, economies, ecologies, the immune system, weather, traffic, and ecosystems, children, our cities, our pets, our partners, our organizations, supply chains, and ourselves are examples of CAS.

Charecteristics of CAS are as follows:

1. Complex systems consist of a large number of elements that in themselves can be simple.
2. The interactions are nonlinear. Even if all the parts are not in communication with each other the effects are propogated.
3. Complex systems are open systems — they exchange energy or information with their environment — and operate at conditions far from equilibrium.
4. Leaderless
5. Self-organizing
6. Adaptive
7. Stochastic → Governed by chance

As a leader in one of the CAS you ;

“Where there is complexity there is emergence, adaptation and uncertainty. Evolution exists in non-linear systems, meaning we cannot predict and control events because the rules can change in ways that we can’t predict. The only thing that’s certain about complex systems is that they are unpredictable. The implication of this is that humans cannot control all things — we cannot be Gods, as Newtonians had believed.”

Why New Ways Of Working? Why Agile? Why Self-Organize?

12 Critical Competencies For Leadership in the Future:

Resource

Some other good resources:

6 Counterintuitive Rules for Being a Better Manager - Advice from Lambda School, Quip & Facebook

Complex Adaptive Systems — Simple Rules, Unpredictable Outcomes

Youtube Resources:

Book Resources:

Till next time,

Stay hungry, stay foolish.