Recommended Reading

Recommended Reading – March 2018

Some blogs I recommend reading this month…

How to Rands
Setting expectations for those you work with is important, Rands lays out his very clearly. Many ideas can be taken into our work environments to improve interactions with our teams.

A Wake-Up Call For Tech Managers
https://hackernoon.com/a-wake-up-call-for-tech-managers-d0415775efd0
“Create an environment where your programmers can fully contribute, or else the best ones will leave.” I do find it difficult to understand managers who wouldn’t want to get the best out of engineers. This cannot be done without involving and listening to them. Good advice to change things: Be humble; Listen more, tell less; Ask more often than tell.

The most surprising principle of good leadership? Don’t be busy.
Not being busy is a challenge but I believe it’s more about the signals you send your teams than the actual work you have to do. Visually showing that everything is under control even when there is a lot going on. Delegation plays a part but time management is the crucial skill to master to get through the essentials while giving space to observe and help the team.

The Best Mentors Ask These 8 Questions
Mentoring is a partnership, it’s not one person imparting their knowledge on the other! Asking questions are essential to understanding what we want to get out of the mentorship – “What outcome do you want?” As the post includes ask questions like “What are the options you’ve come up with?” so the mentee is being challenged to think of solutions themselves.

Hate delivering negative feedback at work? 19 phrases to help make giving difficult feedback easier
Constructive feedback is difficult to deliver, there is no set pattern for every person as we all differ. This post gives some good phrases to start the conversation. Coming from a place of care, observation, and perspective help set the right tone.

Being a hands-on Engineering Manager
My recent post covers how I stay hands-on in the code without impacting delivery. I recommend it for managers who want to get back into the code or those struggling to find the right tech work to take without becoming a bottleneck.

Recommended leadership resources:


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