The Art of Leadership


Book Description

Many people think leadership is a higher calling that resides exclusively with a select few who practice and preach big, complex leadership philosophies. But as this practical book reveals, what’s most important for leadership is principled consistency. Time and again, small things done well build trust and respect within a team. Using stories from his time at Netscape, Apple, and Slack, Michael Lopp presents a series of small but compelling practices to help you build leadership skills. You’ll learn how to create teams that are highly productive, highly respected, and highly trusted. Lopp has been speaking and writing about this topic for over a decade and now maintains a Slack leadership channel with over 13,000 members. The essays in this book examine the practical skills Lopp learned from exceptional leaders—as a manager at Netscape, a senior manager and director at Apple, and an executive at Slack. You’ll learn how to apply these lessons to your own experience.




The Art of Engineering Leadership


Book Description

In times of networking and the growing importance of platform economies, how can products and services be developed that inspire people? Which development methods and organisational forms are promising for this? Leaders and developers will find answers to these questions in this book. With their holistic approach, the authors look at the changing leadership roles that arise in the development of products and services: Is it, for example, about translating new ideas or unknown technologies into high-quality products? Or is it about working efficiently together in an international development alliance? The procedures and models were discussed and further developed in more than 10,000 theoretical and practical workshops with managers at Bosch worldwide. At its core is a leadership model that facilitates discussion and combines the skills needed to master technical issues with those needed to lead people. After an introductory chapter on fundamental questions such as the organization's purpose, values, and strategic goals, key elements of leadership in systems design are introduced, including requirements engineering, architecture design, and model-based development. The following chapters discuss concrete approaches and strategies to - Convert quality attributes, - to reduce risks, - to introduce a review culture, - manage complexity - Process conflicts - Define roles - to build teams. The structure of the book follows the process of developing and implementing strategic goals. However, each chapter can also be read on its own, as it forms a self-contained unit. This book makes the leadership task understandable, discussable and learnable for developers. It thus helps managers to shape change in their own field of work or to grow into a new role.




Lend Me Your Ears


Book Description

The room darkens and grows hushed, all eyes to the front as the screen comes to life. Eagerly the audience starts to thumb the pages of their handouts, following along breathlessly as the slides go by one after the other...We're not sure what the expected outcome was when PowerPoint first emerged as the industry standard model of presentation, but reality has shown few positive results. Research reveals that there is much about this format that audiences positively dislike, and that the old school rules of classical rhetoric are still as effective as they ever were for maximizing impact. Renowned communications researcher, consultant, and speech coach Max Atkinson presents these findings and more in a groundbreaking and refreshing approach that highlights the secrets of successful communication, and shows how anyone can put these into practice and become an effective speaker or presenter.




The Art of Action


Book Description

What do you want me to do? This question is the enduring management issue, a perennial problem that Stephen Bungay shows has an old solution that is counter-intuitive and yet common sense. The Art of Action is a thought-provoking and fresh look at how managers can turn planning into execution, and execution into results. Drawing on his experience as a consultant, senior manager and a highly respected military historian, Stephen Bungay takes a close look at the nineteenth-century Prussian Army, which built its agility on the initiative of its highly empowered junior officers, to show business leaders how they can build more effective, productive organizations. Based on a theoretical framework which has been tested in practice over 150 years, Bungay shows how the approach known as 'mission command' has been applied in businesses as diverse as pharmaceuticals and F1 racing today. The Art of Action is scholarly but engaging, rigorous but pragmatic, and shows how common sense can sometimes be surprising.




Leadership on the Line, With a New Preface


Book Description

The dangerous work of leading change--somebody has to do it. Will you put yourself on the line? To lead is to live dangerously. It's romantic and exciting to think of leadership as all inspiration, decisive action, and rich rewards, but leading requires taking risks that can jeopardize your career and your personal life. It requires putting yourself on the line, disrupting the status quo, and surfacing hidden conflict. And when people resist and push back, there's a strong temptation to play it safe. Those who choose to lead plunge in, take the risks, and sometimes get burned. But it doesn't have to be that way say renowned leadership experts Ronald Heifetz and Marty Linsky. In Leadership on the Line, they show how it's possible to make a difference without getting "taken out" or pushed aside. They present everyday tools that give equal weight to the dangerous work of leading change and the critical importance of personal survival. Through vivid stories from all walks of life, the authors present straightforward strategies for navigating the perilous straits of leadership. Whether you're a parent or a politician, a CEO or a community activist, this practical book shows how you can exercise leadership and survive and thrive to enjoy the fruits of your labor.




An Elegant Puzzle


Book Description

A human-centric guide to solving complex problems in engineering management, from sizing teams to handling technical debt. There’s a saying that people don’t leave companies, they leave managers. Management is a key part of any organization, yet the discipline is often self-taught and unstructured. Getting to the good solutions for complex management challenges can make the difference between fulfillment and frustration for teams—and, ultimately, between the success and failure of companies. Will Larson’s An Elegant Puzzle focuses on the particular challenges of engineering management—from sizing teams to handling technical debt to performing succession planning—and provides a path to the good solutions. Drawing from his experience at Digg, Uber, and Stripe, Larson has developed a thoughtful approach to engineering management for leaders of all levels at companies of all sizes. An Elegant Puzzle balances structured principles and human-centric thinking to help any leader create more effective and rewarding organizations for engineers to thrive in.




The Art of Leadership


Book Description

The Art of Leadership, Fourth Edition, is more than a textbook; it is a "learning" book that actively involves the reader in the learning process. The text combines behavior theory with business practice to teach critical concepts and skills in leadership development. In addition self-evaluation questionnaires and practical exercises are integrated throughout to facilitate personal development and class involvement.




Managing Humans


Book Description

Managing Humans is a selection of the best essays from Michael Lopp's popular website Rands in Repose(www.randsinrepose.com). Lopp is one of the most sought-after IT managers in Silicon Valley, and draws on his experiences at Apple, Netscape, Symantec, and Borland. This book reveals a variety of different approaches for creating innovative, happy development teams. It covers handling conflict, managing wildly differing personality types, infusing innovation into insane product schedules, and figuring out how to build lasting and useful engineering culture. The essays are biting, hilarious, and always informative.




Thanks for the Feedback


Book Description

The coauthors of the New York Times–bestselling Difficult Conversations take on the toughest topic of all: how we see ourselves Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen have spent the past fifteen years working with corporations, nonprofits, governments, and families to determine what helps us learn and what gets in our way. In Thanks for the Feedback, they explain why receiving feedback is so crucial yet so challenging, offering a simple framework and powerful tools to help us take on life’s blizzard of offhand comments, annual evaluations, and unsolicited input with curiosity and grace. They blend the latest insights from neuroscience and psychology with practical, hard-headed advice. Thanks for the Feedback is destined to become a classic in the fields of leadership, organizational behavior, and education.




Product Leadership


Book Description

In today’s lightning-fast technology world, good product management is critical to maintaining a competitive advantage. Yet, managing human beings and navigating complex product roadmaps is no easy task, and it’s rare to find a product leader who can steward a digital product from concept to launch without a couple of major hiccups. Why do some product leaders succeed while others don’t? This insightful book presents interviews with nearly 100 leading product managers from all over the world. Authors Richard Banfield, Martin Eriksson, and Nate Walkingshaw draw on decades of experience in product design and development to capture the approaches, styles, insights, and techniques of successful product managers. If you want to understand what drives good product leaders, this book is an irreplaceable resource. In three parts, Product Leadership helps you explore: Themes and patterns of successful teams and their leaders, and ways to attain those characteristics Best approaches for guiding your product team through the startup, emerging, and enterprise stages of a company’s evolution Strategies and tactics for working with customers, agencies, partners, and external stakeholders