
Ask HN: What makes a good technical leader – any recommended books? - latentdeepspace
I just became a technical lead (spiced with a little product manager) for a team who is working with machine-learning&#x2F;deep-learning technologies (I have ~6 years of background in this field). I feel like I am performing well, but there is a lot of room for improvement on: how to plan for the future, how to communicate success, how to assign engineers and researchers to tasks, how to define tasks, etc.<p>Do you have any recommendation on what should I do, read to become better and better every day? I want my team to be successful, and to show the improvements we make to the company.
======
colebowl
The best book on leadership I read was Jocko Willink's Extreme Ownership[1].
He was a career US Navy SEAL and bring a lot of great leadership approaches
from the SEALS and correlates them to the business world. His principles lead
back to the idea of taking extreme ownership of everything related to your
team and the "mission". I really liked his no nonsense approach.

The best lesson I learnt on leadership is to listen to and believe in your
team. They are the experts, not you anymore. Your job now is to clear the path
to their success. Different people need different things to succeed, it's your
job to figure that out and try your best to provide it.

What I recommend: Figure out what kind of leader you want to be. Read as much
as you can and talk to other leaders inside and outside of your company to see
what works and doesn't work for them.

Finally, make sure your team has a crystal clear definition of what success is
and the milestones to get there. Ensuring this understanding will help your
team move in the same direction.

Good luck!

[1] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848190-extreme-
ownersh...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23848190-extreme-ownership)

~~~
senthil_rajasek
When I was still a new dev, I had a "superboss" in another city (HQ) managing
teams across the country including our little dev team. I was new and did not
interact with "superboss"-es from HQ directly.

One day after a major release stuff broke in production. The company was
losing customers daily. The "superboss"-es from HQ descended on our little dev
team in a small midwestern city and ordered "Code Red".

What it meant to me as a new dev was that I can't go home and the whole team
had to stay in the office until the problem was solved... A part of the team
had to sleep in the office for a few weeks. (I still don't know if this is
against OSHA.)

Many years later while I was watching the movie "A Few Good Men.", I learnt
that "Code Red" was a military term. Suddenly, it dawned on me that my
"superboss" was also an ex-military person.

Sleeping at work did not fix the issue, after many months of hiring help and
bringing in more hands the outage was brought under control.

Did the ex-military "superboss" help the situation? I don't know...

Now I know that Military veterans in their enthusiasm to find work in civilian
environments tout their ex-military skills as team building or leadership
skills.

Skills learned in the military are for war, learned for conflict situations
and applying them to civilian environments and bringing a war mentality or
attitude to a workplace is toxic.

I don't have an answer to what makes a good technical leader but I know from
experience that ex-military style leadership only adds to the toxicity of a
workplace.

~~~
maerF0x0
EDIT- Seems the below came from a misreading of the OP text, But i cannot
delete it now that I'm downvoted... Please ignore.

> Skills learned in the military are for war, learned for conflict situations
> and applying them to civilian environments and bringing a war mentality or
> attitude to a workplace is toxic.

> only adds to the toxicity of a workplace

What exactly was the toxicity besides your choice to overreact (stay
overnight) ? Why do you believe that leadership skills for war are not
applicable to other domains?

~~~
foo_barington4
>A part of the team had to sleep in the office for a few weeks.

So it sounds like OP was coerced to do so and it was not a free choice or an
"overreaction" as you characterize it.

~~~
maerF0x0
i see, I didnt read it as a command but as a "We volitionally chose to solve
the issue this way"

~~~
pixelbash
"Had to" usually implies coercion of a sort. Like you might say "in PE class
we had to stand on one leg for 10 minutes".

~~~
maerF0x0
I've had experiences where "Had to" was like

"If I wanted the outcome I was aiming for I had to.... (workout?)" This is how
I took the sentence. A totally volitionally accepted responsibility

------
gregdoesit
Congrats on the transition! I have several books to recommend that I all read
are on my bookshelf, some with reviews[1]. YMMV vary but these were the most
helpful for me:

1\. The First 90 Days - a good reminder that when you transition, it's like
starting a new job

2\. Become and Effective Software Engineering Manager - a hands-on book for
people transitioning to management, starting at a new company or looking to
make more of an org-wide impact.

3\. The Manager's Path - a short reference handbook for managers at all
levels.

4\. The Goal - written in the '80s, yet a timeless novel on what management is
about, may that be a manager of a team, an organization or an industrial
plant.

Also, I wrote a post about my learnings on transitioning from engineer to
manager that has some good comments on HN[2]

[1] [https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/my-reading-
list/#engineer...](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/my-reading-
list/#engineering-management-books)

[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15326652](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15326652)

~~~
Jtsummers
Following on from _The Goal_ are _It 's Not Luck_ and _Critical Chain_. The
latter of those is particularly good in combination with the more recent
_Phoenix Project_.

Each of these books is a bit utopian or idealistic. By doing what's suggested
by the guru everything magically works out. But, while not magical, the ideas
really do work and help operate and understand organizations. The principles
are not complex, each book can probably be summarized in a 3-5 page paper. But
the "case study" (quotes because it's a fictional plant/company, not just one
obscured by pseudonyms) is good for illustrating the point and the path of
process improvement.

------
goopthink
1\. "An Elegant Puzzle - Systems of Engineering Management" by Will Larson.
His blog & "Staff Eng" posts are helpful as well.
[https://lethain.com/tags/staff-eng/](https://lethain.com/tags/staff-eng/)

2\. "The Phoenix Project", "The Unicorn Project" (novels), and "DevOps
Handbook" by Eugene Kim, on how different parts of a tech + non-tech
organization come and work together.

3\. "High Output Management" by Andrew Grove on overall technical management.

4\. "Measure What Matters" by John Doerr on setting objectives and measuring
their progress.

5\. "The Checklist Manifesto" by Atul Gawande on thinking through replicable
processes.

6\. "Who" by Geoff Smart on hiring.

7\. "Start with Why" by Simon Sinek and "The Culture Code" by Daniel Coyle on
creating culture and reasons for why people do the work. It's an important
part of any management process, double import because of how often it is lost
in technical management.

~~~
dublin
Some good suggestions (and a couple I'll have to read...) I'd add the
following:

8\. "The Mythical Man-Month" by Fred Brooks (still, IMO, one of the best
management books ever, esp. for software and product development.)

9\. Boyd: The Fighter Pilot Who Changed the Art of War by Robert Coram (OODA
is the true core of agile thinking, and it works pretty much everywhere.)

For software and computers specifically, add:

10\. Computer Lib/Dream Machines by Ted Nelson (Impossible to categorize -
it's a hypertext _book_ for crying out loud - but browsing it can change your
thinking.)

11\. The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder. (Good for new products in
general.)

And for general management and leadership inspiration, two great
autobiographies:

12\. Mover of Men and Mountains, by R.G. Le Tourneau.

13\. Rickenbacker, by Eddie Rickenbacker.

~~~
goopthink
Some good additions there, some I’ll need to check out. I really liked the
Boyd book when I read it, but I would probably recommend his papers/reports or
some of the more short form things written about him to get to the point
faster (RibbonFarm/Venkatesh Rao was how I was introduced). That said, I did
learn a lot about navigating bureaucracy (perhaps bullheadedly).

On that note, I would also add another book about organizational psychology -
how people game incentives, how cya evolved, how people focus on short term
thinking over long term investments, problems common across big businesses,
written by a sociologist embedded for a few years in a corporation, but I
can’t for the life of me remember it.

But also:

The Secrets of Consulting” by Gerald Weinberg on generally thinking through
‘solutionizing’.

“Systemantics” by John Galt as a short and fun intro to applied systems
thinking and cascading effects.

“We Need to Talk” by Celeste Headlee on how to have difficult conversations.

“Never Split the difference” on handling and understanding negotiations both
up and down the chain.

------
philk10
Becoming a Technical Leader: An Organic Problem-Solving Approach - Jerry
Weinberg (and many other great books by him) - a book I've read and re-read
many times. A brief review here - [https://blog.mkorman.uk/book-review-
becoming-a-technical-lea...](https://blog.mkorman.uk/book-review-becoming-a-
technical-leader/)

~~~
lynchdt
I’m surprised this book didn’t come up sooner, it’s a fantastic book.

To my knowledge the only book mentioned here that takes the time to define
technical leadership and present models of leadership suited potentially to
different circumstances.

I might add ‘The art and science of doing engineering’ by hamming and recently
republished by stripe.

The more leadership or management books I read the more inclined I am to
respect Taleb’s approach of looking for old timeless material rather than
what’s new or hot.

Most of what Gerald Weinberg has written qualifies IMO. Tom DeMarcos books
also.

------
ta1234567890
This book is not about technical management in particular, but it can help you
a lot in understanding and dealing with people better, it's called The
Charisma Myth: [https://www.amazon.com/Charisma-Myth-Science-Personal-
Magnet...](https://www.amazon.com/Charisma-Myth-Science-Personal-
Magnetism/dp/1591845947/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=charisma+myth&qid=1594135403&sprefix=charisma+my&sr=8-3)

The book is an interesting read, but merely reading it won't do anything.
There are one or two exercises per chapter, and you should work on them if you
really want to see the benefits.

Also, if you want to do a little test before reading the whole book follow
these tips from the intro:

> Three quick tips to boost charisma in conversation: Lower the intonation of
> your voice at the end of sentences, reduce how quickly and how often you
> nod, and pause for two full seconds before you speak.

From this summary: [https://github.com/mgp/book-notes/blob/master/the-
charisma-m...](https://github.com/mgp/book-notes/blob/master/the-charisma-
myth.markdown)

------
kingkongjaffa
Read/listen to [https://www.manager-tools.com/](https://www.manager-
tools.com/) they posit that all good managers do these four things in
abundance:

1\. 1 on 1's (which are for the benefit of the direct report not the boss)
weekly for 30 minutes - 15 minutes for you, 15 minutes for the direct report.

2\. Giving feedback both good and bad in a constructive way

3\. Providing coaching and context to the reports work

4\. Tactical delegation of tasks both that you know they can do so they feel
good about their work, and also some difficult tasks to stretch them (with
coaching)

This plus understanding the different types of role power within an
oganization, and knowing which type of power to use when and with who.(hint
it's often never the right answer to user your role power to say ''do this
because I am the boss'' use role power sparingly)

~~~
cybadger
I second the recommendation for Manager Tools. Start with the "Basics" casts
on one-on-ones, feedback, coaching, and delegation to get up to speed. Their
book The Effective Manager by Mark Horstman is a great place to start, too.

The podcast was super helpful to me in transitioning from IC to management.

------
kamyarg
I would say ask for feedback from the team you are leading in an honest way
and evaluate what you get back and try your best to change if it makes sense.

Usually your actions affect them the most and if you do something that
"annoys" them(e.g. Too authoritarian, micromanaging, Not giving the credit
when due, Not defending them against external forces etc.), most would not
approach you from below to mention it(exceptions exist), after all you are the
lead/manager imagine how you would(or would not) give feedback to a Senior
Director if they did not ask for it. Giving unsolicited feedback is also weird
and some people don't receive feedback well, so them making the first move is
all but risk unless they know you want it.

Not every feedback makes sense and not every person can give feedback
properly(being too shy or too harsh etc.). You would also need to learn how
they communicate their concerns and calibrate what they say. For example "I
don't like X because Y" of a very introvert person carries more weight than
same sentence of someone that can easily discuss things they don't like
openly.

Edit: As you have asked specifically for books, I can recommend "Making of a
Manager" by Julie Zhuo. It is a very good and structured read.

------
mathattack
\- The Mythical Man Month by Brooks talks about ways to avoid the traps of
blindly throwing more people at problems.

\- Out of the Crisis by Deming is useful for thinking about achieving quality
by improving the systems rather than focusing on the individuals.

\- Peopleware by Demarco for arguing the opposite.

\- Everything ever written by Tom Peters for staying focused on customers and
engaged in the game.

------
wenc
The type of knowledge relevant to becoming a good technical lead seems to me
to be "tacit knowledge".

Books can provide vocabulary and ideas, as well as ways of thinking about the
subject. I know that Andy Grove's "High Output Management" gave me way of
thinking about the corporate world that helped shape my interactions in the
workplace and with senior management. There's no doubt that through great
books one gets to pick the brains of geniuses whom one might never get to meet
in real life, so there's inherent value in that.

That said, to truly get better though, I believe one needs to be apprenticed
or coached by someone who knows what "being good" looks like. That is, to find
someone who has real expertise (not just commenters on HN who've never managed
anyone), shadowing them and synthesizing their expertise to fit one's own
style.

Most people who are "good" can't explain why they're good (some can, most
can't) -- so one almost has to study them up close. There's an old saying that
"leadership is caught, not taught"... sounds like a tired old cliché, but
seems to be somewhat true in my observation.

------
vikeri
An Elegant Puzzle by Will Larson was very interesting. It's a bit of a
handbook and you don't necessarily have to read it cover to cover but instead
you can dive into whichever section that is relevant for you at the moment:
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732265186](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1732265186)

~~~
aespinoza
I second this. Will Larson's book is definitely one of the best if not the
best book I have read on the subject.

There are other good books which can add to it like "The Manager's Path" by
Camille
Fournier.([https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XP3GJ7F/](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B06XP3GJ7F/))

------
jqcoffey
Crazy that no one mentioned the Mythical Man Month by Fred J. Brooks
([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13629.The_Mythical_Man_M...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13629.The_Mythical_Man_Month)).
I thought it was the definitive classic.

I also like to recommend Coders at Work by Peter Seibel
([https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6713575-coders-at-
work](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6713575-coders-at-work)). It's
incredibly useful to read about just how different 16 ultra high performing
software engineers are/were. Nothing prepares you for technical leadership
better than understanding that.

EDIT: just saw that Mythical Man Month was added 1 minute prior to my comment.

~~~
brians
I love Seibel’s work, but it’s important to know he has retracted much of the
emphasis on code reading. He apparently read that into his subjects words,
perhaps in a manic period.

~~~
jqcoffey
Ah, that's good to know. Thanks!

------
nurettin
> Do you have any recommendation on what should I do, read to become better
> and better every day?

It helps to write a hello world for every hot new tech out there. Not to
follow trends, but to actually be knowledgeable enough to have a valid
opinion. Think of yourself as a radio station who has to buy or at least
sample every popular track. Crystal is hot? Set up a web server and connect to
sql. Set up a Vert.X server and write a consumer. Set up a simple neural net
with torch, train it a little, load it in java. These all take an hour max
each day. An hour well spent compared to scouring books for managers in order
to deduce some insight on how to manage people. Developers will appreciate and
respect you when you know their job at this precision level and it will make
your job a lot easier.

~~~
afarrell
> These all take an hour max each day.

um, what? If this is based on personal experience I would love to understand
how.

In my experience, Setting up a totally new development environment in an
unfamiliar toolset generally takes waaaay more than an hour.

~~~
nurettin
There is usually a gotcha when setting up a new environment. IMO it works
frictionless when you are on linux. Android studio installs sdk and ndk so
it's like cheating. Linux provides everything to write some c++. Pyenv can
easily install whichever python environment you want. Then you can use
venv/poetry/pipenv. Snaps can help set up java and kotlin instantly. Spring
boot has a website to download a starting template. rvm for ruby, just setting
up some environment variables is enough for go, rustup and cargo for rust,
etc. Elixir just works out of the box. I don't know how hard the next thing
will be.

Do you have an example of a setup you got stuck on for hours?

------
anticonformist
Remember that it is not "your" team but that you are just a member of the
team, in good standing, with the relevant experience, that is volunteering to
take on some additional responsibility.

Focus on the job at hand. Don't get into unnecessary political disputes.
You're a tech lead, so keep it technical and focused on solving business
problems.

Be kind and understanding of people's personal issues. It's a marathon, not a
sprint, so it's fine if people's productivity goes up and down over time. As
long as they contribute well over time, there should be no problem.

Make sure people take time off. Burn out sneaks up on people. Taking weeks off
regularly is essential.

Do plenty of grunt work yourself, don't pawn it all off.

Write the most documentation and help your teammates write theirs.

Share the credit. Credit the team and individual team members frequently.
Point out when people do well.

Downplay failures. Unless a mistake is malicious, you should blame the
technology and the processes in place rather than the people involved. Humans
make mistakes and it's through technology and process that we avoid them
causing damage. Fixing the weakness in your technology or process is what
really matters.

Most of all: lead by example. You should be an exemplar team member. Not
perfect; no one is. Not an expert in every dimension; no one is. You should
simply perform your duties in a way that your teammates could emulate with
success.

There are a hundred other things, of course. That's just a few ideas.

------
pjmorris
My two favorites for this are 'Becoming a Technical Leader', Gerald Weinberg,
and 'Making Things Happen', Scott Berkun.

~~~
totally
+1 on Becoming a technical leader:

[https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Technical-Leader-Problem-
Sol...](https://www.amazon.com/Becoming-Technical-Leader-Problem-Solving-
Approach/dp/0932633021)

~~~
kaetemi
+2 It's a nice read with a lot of insights.

Does go off on a lot of tangents, but it's more interesting than books which
keep rambling on the same idea chapter after chapter.

------
kitsune_
Podcasts:

Coaching for Leaders (Gold mine with hundreds of great episodes, as an example
[https://coachingforleaders.com/podcast/maximize-team-
perform...](https://coachingforleaders.com/podcast/maximize-team-
performance/))

Manager Tools (They even have a section for new managers:
[https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/important-topic-
feeds...](https://www.manager-tools.com/podcasts/important-topic-feeds/new-
managers-feed))

Books:

The Effective Manager

The Speed of Trust

Five Dysfunctions of a Team

Turn The Ship Around

If you want to look further than traditional command and control structures, I
recommend looking into Deming, Sociocracy, teal organizations or the
aforementioned book "Turn The Ship Around".

Also, look into norming, storming, forming performing and team operating
guidelines.

------
wins32767
I've found that Switch[1] is really helpful for technical leaders. A large
part of the job of a leader is successfully implementing change and too many
leaders with a technical background lean too much on logic and reasoning to
try to make changes happen. Switch offers a playbook for successfully
implementing change and when I've followed it closely I've been much more
successful than when I wing it.

[1][https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-
Hard/dp/038...](https://www.amazon.com/Switch-Change-Things-When-
Hard/dp/0385528752/ref=sr_1_1?crid=14KDF62P1N9YT&dchild=1&keywords=switch+how+to+change+things+when+change+is+hard&qid=1594133848&sprefix=switch+how%2Caps%2C157&sr=8-1)

------
flamtap
The Five Dysfunctions of a Team is a perennial classic, though not tech
focused. But that's probably okay in combination with more tech-industry
focused literature.

------
jeffbee
What "tech lead" means varies hugely from organization to organization and
from team to team and person to person. For general success of teams, this is
my favorite book: [https://www.amazon.com/Debugging-Teams-Productivity-
through-...](https://www.amazon.com/Debugging-Teams-Productivity-through-
Collaboration/dp/1491932058)

~~~
adminsitrator
you can get pdf of this book free from
[http://cdn.oreillystatic.com/pdf/Debugging_Teams.pdf](http://cdn.oreillystatic.com/pdf/Debugging_Teams.pdf)
(legal)

------
jakevoytko
I wrote a blog post about this forever ago[0] summarizing what I've seen work.

The most important thing to realize is how success will be measured. It will
no longer be your individual contributions. Instead, you will be measured by
how successful your team is. So you need to use your time to make your team
more effective.

So the most important thing you can do is prevent anyone from becoming
blocked. The next-most important thing is unblocking people when they become
blocked.

How do you prevent people from becoming blocked? Make sure that everyone knows
where they are going, and they know what to do when they get there. Make sure
everyone knows what they are working on, and what they will be working on
next. Promote good practices, and ensure that processes have consistent
documentation.

How do you unblock people? Review their code quickly. Learn to differentiate
"I don't want you to submit this because I don't prefer this" (bad attitude)
from "I don't want you to submit this because it's going to have a negative
consequence"). Learn how to phrase that second sentence in a way that doesn't
make your coworkers dread getting reviews from you. Spend your time fixing
tech debt that's adding drag to the team.

As you do this more, you should also make sure that people on your team are
growing. Give them harder tasks than they had before. Ensure that junior
engineers are getting mentored. Correct imbalances: if a specific engineer is
always taking notes in meetings, create a notes rotation so that everyone has
to do it.

[0] [https://www.bitlog.com/2017/10/12/what-does-a-tech-lead-
do/](https://www.bitlog.com/2017/10/12/what-does-a-tech-lead-do/)

~~~
zoomablemind
> The most important thing to realize is how success will be measured...

I think this could be applicable in general sense too, so that your team
understands the value system that you establish. People are smart,
professionals are even smarter, so they figure out the incentive system
quickly. Placing a right emphasis and staying consistent helps to communicate
this.

Another thing that adds to the notion of unblocking is to establish a culture
of "a long enough before calling for a backup", that is to try your best to
crack a problem by yourself, but have a way to recognize a being stuck and
allow to call for a help with no shame or sense of failure. In my view, this
has both a culture and a protocol aspects.

------
thomk
A few things that have helped me.

1\. Have a one-on-one meeting with every member of your team, for 30 minutes
each week. They know when that meeting is coming up, and you know, so things
that they want to tell you in private can come up then.

2\. A good leader anticipates what his team is going to need before the team
knows they need it. Try to do that. If there's a big release coming up next
month, do what you can to make that 100% successful. Make sure there are no
vacations, company meetings or other things that would impede that. Give your
team room to breathe and make sure they are not bogged down with distractions.

If you can make their lives easier, they will make your life easier by kicking
ass for you.

3\. Oh, one more thing. If you are in a meeting and you are having a group
discussion on how to solve a problem, make sure you call in people who are
quiet. After the conversation has quieted down a bit and you are dialing in on
an answer, if Jim hasn't said much simply say "Jim what do you think?"

~~~
tootie
Once a week is a lot in the age of Slack. I talk to my people asynchronously
all the time, so the one-on-one is less important. Still do it though.

I'll tell my single Golden Rule for managing people is to make sure they
always know what's expected of them. Not knowing what's expected of you is
probably the single greatest source of stress.

~~~
afarrell
An even bigger source of stress is asking questions to try to understand what
is expected of you and being told that your leader is confident that you
understand what is expected of you.

------
tensor
Contrary to most people, in my experience managing technical people is the
same as managing anyone else. The best general management book I've read is:
Becoming the Evidence Based Manager. The information in this book is backed by
science studies and is also extremely actionable and easy to understand. It's
really changed my life as a manager.

[https://www.amazon.ca/Gary-
Latham/dp/1473676975/ref=sxts_sxw...](https://www.amazon.ca/Gary-
Latham/dp/1473676975/ref=sxts_sxwds-bia-
wc-p13n1_0?cv_ct_cx=becoming+the+evidence+based+manager&dchild=1&keywords=becoming+the+evidence+based+manager&pd_rd_i=1473676975&pd_rd_r=c14cc298-7cb1-46f0-a8ef-64852464351b&pd_rd_w=lHbtO&pd_rd_wg=uFv97&pf_rd_p=5dc9bb73-73b1-4abd-a228-ac5c707beb7e&pf_rd_r=23NSX8AAT6989PEV6ZY5&psc=1&qid=1594140442&sr=1-1-70f7c15d-07d8-466a-b325-4be35d7258cc)

------
nhumrich
Two absolute must reads:

Peopleware

Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software

Both are scientifical approaches to what makes effective teams.

~~~
honkycat
I will second Accelerate. Phenomenal book.

It breaks down what a modern, high performance software team in 2020 looks
like. It has the best explanation of what burnout is and the causes of I have
ever read.

Accelerate takes a scientific approach to managing teams, so when you try to
raise these ideas at your own place of business, they are backed up by
research instead of just: "This person said X."

------
gen220
The classics are all covered in other comments. For some hyper-relevant
content (the sand to fill the in-between spaces filled up by big philosophies
and principles), I've found Will Larson's blog
([https://lethain.com/](https://lethain.com/)) and book
([https://press.stripe.com/#an-elegant-puzzle](https://press.stripe.com/#an-
elegant-puzzle)) to be really useful.

It provides tools for solving specific problems, and a language to discuss
what's going wrong and what the solution looks like.
[https://lethain.com/durably-excellent-teams/](https://lethain.com/durably-
excellent-teams/) The concepts he covers in this post, in particular, have
been invaluable.

------
jaspal747
Put yourself in the CEO's shoes and see the entire company end to end. Then
see how your team is contributing to the bigger story. Work on bringing
business context to tasks. Help your team members see the business/strategy
line of thought behind decisions. Once team members have context to the work
they do, they are better motivated and bring in valuable insights. Always
appreciate and bring spotlight on them for successes. Always take on the blame
and never forward criticism directly to your team members. You are the buffer.
Read books on strategy/business to gain greater perspective. Train yourself
and your team in second and third order thinking. Helping them come up with
all kinds of scenarios around their tasks. Finally, be humble, caring, and be
nice to everyone. Cheers!

------
aprdm
I have been a team lead for four years now in different companies / teams.

I think empathy and radical candor are the most important skills ! There’s a
book called radical candor that I really recommend.

Other than those I recommend reading how very effective leaders did their job,
Eleven Rings by the NBA coach Phil is absolutely amazing on how to build a
winning team as is Leading from Ferguson (soccer). Turn the ship around is
another great book by someone’s experience in the navy.

Creating a safe space where people know the goals clearly, communicate
effectively and helping to unblock them are part of the goal !

------
exabrial
Here's two really good articles, not books, on the subject:

* [https://www.hashtagcoder.dev/blog/director-of-engineering](https://www.hashtagcoder.dev/blog/director-of-engineering)

* [https://humanwhocodes.com/blog/2012/06/12/the-care-and-feedi...](https://humanwhocodes.com/blog/2012/06/12/the-care-and-feeding-of-software-engineers-or-why-engineers-are-grumpy/)

~~~
adminsitrator
nice articles

------
comvidyarthi
Read The Manager’s Path by Camille Fournier. It’s not just about managers,
it’s also about tech leads.

~~~
dudul
If I recall correctly, only the first 2 chapters are about tech leads and
mentoring. The rest is already about manager roles. I don't know if it's a
good investment for someone focusing exclusively on tech lead role.

That being said, really good book :)

------
agotterer
Here's the list of books I've been recommending new managers and leaders read:

Small Unit Leadership: A Commonsense Approach [https://www.amazon.com/Small-
Unit-Leadership-Commonsense-App...](https://www.amazon.com/Small-Unit-
Leadership-Commonsense-Approach/dp/0891411739/ref=sr_1_1)

The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787960756/?coliid=I12MQNI6MIK6JR&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787960756/?coliid=I12MQNI6MIK6JR&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

High Output Management
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679762884/?coliid=I2G1Y1JLPP55SY&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0679762884/?coliid=I2G1Y1JLPP55SY&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

Measure What Matters
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525536221/?coliid=I1G6EQRC0QYPE1&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0525536221/?coliid=I1G6EQRC0QYPE1&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

Death by Meeting
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787968056/?coliid=I38A8AYMZGSLYZ&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/0787968056/?coliid=I38A8AYMZGSLYZ&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and
Lead
[https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1455554790/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1455554790/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title)

The Hard Thing About Hard Things [https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-
Things-Building/dp/B...](https://www.amazon.com/Hard-Thing-About-Things-
Building/dp/B00I0A6HUO/ref=sr_1_2)

Start with Why (you can prob skip the book and just watch
[https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_insp...](https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action?language=en))
[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846447/?coliid=I2Q0IN84LJ230W&...](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1591846447/?coliid=I2Q0IN84LJ230W&colid=133LYQFI0Z2OA&psc=1&ref_=lv_ov_lig_dp_it)

------
Blahah
Anything from the Harvard Negotiation Project [1]. Their books set the
standard for universal, transferable, actionable, and evidence-based advise
about how to optimise social situations for the benefit of everyone involved.
They have online classes for various different skillsets and situations.
Almost every mentor I have has recommended either the project as a whole, or a
specific resource of theirs, to me.

Just in general I want to commend you for taking the time and energy to learn
about this. It's a tragedy of the modern world that highly skilled people tend
to be promoted into management roles and then stagnate, so that many tech
organisations end up with people who are great at their specialism and
terrible at managing people in managerial roles. Taking the initiative to
really try to understand and excel at management is going to benefit not just
you, but everyone who works with you. Bravo.

1:
[https://www.pon.harvard.edu/category/research_projects/harva...](https://www.pon.harvard.edu/category/research_projects/harvard-
negotiation-project/)

------
k__
I'd say, don't lead/manage but assist.

Don't decide on your own if possible.

Decision coming from top? Communicate that. Otherwise, ask your team what it
think is the best course of action.

Only decide on your when something would be blocked.

I always read about two sides.

"Managers are needed, because there are tough decisions to make and people
need to be led!"

"Managers aren't needed, people can govern them on their own!"

I think the truth is in the middle.

------
ulisesrmzroche
Few things I’ve learned recently is that mistakes happen, as long as an honest
effort was made, it shouldn’t be a big deal

All arguments are communication problems.

If you’re coding all day you’re doing it wrong. Delegation is the most
important. Communication is critical. Tech leads who crash and burn are
usually the strongest developers.

Happy team is a productive team. Always expect the best from people.

------
deeblering4
I recommend learning about, and practicing, servant leadership to the furthest
extent possible in the role.

I don't have a specific book for you, so will link the wikipedia article as a
jumping off point:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Servant_leadership)

------
tmaly
I would recommend the One Minute Manager. It is written in story format, and
its a very simple set of three concepts.

I have tried other books, but they usually have too much to remember.

One other book I found useful was The Coaching Habit. It gives you a different
perspective on how to deal with the emotional aspect of leadership.

------
bluGill
First figure out what they want, and then figure out what is best for the
project/company, finally figure out what how to turn it into the future you
want.

What they want is important. This could be a way to recognize that you are
great without giving you architecture power, they want you to continue to do
what you are doing no more (this is unlikely but be aware of it). They may
want you to write a little less code and turn some of the "lesser" developers
into a 10x developer. They may want to give you permission and power to re-
architect the system so it will work for the future. They may want you to
spend all your time estimating effort so they can decide which interesting
project is worth doing. This may be the title they give to the boss of small
teams and you no longer do technical work.

What is best for the company/project is sometimes different. Sometimes that
means what you need to do to make a success is different from what they think.
If so this is tricky ground that will either get you fired for not doing you
job, or a great promotion for saving the company. More likely you have options
in your position and so you need to figure out which option is worth spending
your time on and which are less useful for your company now. There are
interesting tools that won't solve your biggest problems even though they
would make some other lesser problems better, choose wisely what to spend your
time on.

Last where do you want to be in the future. Within the above you have choices.
If you are interested in something not the most important thing to work on you
need to decide how much to focus on each. (different situations have different
answers, sometimes you have to focus on the important things, others you can
only give it a little attention and that is good enough) sometimes you will
refuse the promotion. Sometimes you will decide what is best for the company
is best for you. Sometimes you take the promotion but need to focus on your
personal life to ensure the job doesn't kill it, other times they are
compatible. Sometimes you realize you are in the wrong job.

------
webmaven
So many good book recommendations here, but no one has mentioned Tom DeMarco's
The Deadline:
[https://books.google.com/books?id=5_kJAQAAMAAJ&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=5_kJAQAAMAAJ&printsec=frontcover)

In style and content, it's a bit like an older version of "The Phoenix
Project" that was focused on delivering packaged software, and mostly oriented
around a "stocks and flows" model of the development process.

The framing narrative is _much_ more amusing, though.

Also worth reading Edward Yourdon's Death March:

[https://books.google.com/books?id=FdAZUX9H_gAC&printsec=fron...](https://books.google.com/books?id=FdAZUX9H_gAC&printsec=frontcover)

------
sharkbot
I've just started reading "Agile Conversations" [1], and I found it's a nice
complement to the other books mentioned in the thread. It's a little
idealistic at times, but I like the focus on shared understanding and aligning
perspectives. I used a couple of the approaches from the book quite recently
and found that it kept the discussion focused on improvements rather than
blaming.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Conversations-Transform-Your-
Cu...](https://www.amazon.com/Agile-Conversations-Transform-Your-Culture-
ebook/dp/B07YZP8LC9)

------
janwillemb
_How to win friends and influence people_ , by Dale Carnegie. Despite the
somewhat creepy title, it's a really good book on how to get good
relationships with other people. It's not necessarily for tech folks.

------
chapati2301
I have a little hobby project which aims to answer that exact question:
[https://leadership-library.dev](https://leadership-library.dev)

It’s essentially a collection of books / podcasts / newsletters on modern
technical leadership :)

------
iwd
I've written a lot about this as a resource for my colleagues at work, perhaps
you would find it useful as well. There's a list of recommended books embedded
in there, but a lot of other info as well: [https://ianwdavis.com/advice-new-
lead.html](https://ianwdavis.com/advice-new-lead.html)

------
rvivek
The biggest change is to change your mindset to "it's your job to enable the
team to do the work vs you doing it." So, whenever you are thinking about
doing X, think about how to enable your team to do X. This is not trying to be
lethargic but working to make yourself redundant, which is the highest success
for a leader, IMO.

------
kevsim
I really liked “Managing Humans”. Super useful and told in a story format that
makes it ultra accessible

~~~
stonogo
This book left me with a bad taste in my mouth, as though it were written by
someone who wasn't really grounded in experience. I'm not sure if the author
was trying to convince me or himself. Perhaps I'm not the target audience, but
I'd be interested to hear more about why you liked it, since it was such a
disappointment to me.

~~~
kevsim
It’s years since I’ve read it to be honest. I remember finding the parts on
how to conduct one-on-ones useful at the time. I don’t recall feeling the
author was unsure of himself (and he’s a pretty successful tech leader btw,
currently VP Eng at Slack).

------
mrtimo
"Adventures of an IT Leader" from Harvard Business School Press - is good. It
is perhaps more general than what you are looking for. It is written from the
CIO perspective. You can often find the audiobook in your local library.

------
mtzaldo
My recommendation:

1\. Learn Scrum/kanban (not a book)

2\. Developer Hegemony: The Future of Labor

3\. The First-Time Manager by Loren B. Belker

4\. Conscious Business: How to Build Value through Values

5\. The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable

------
b20000
a good technical leader goes to bat for the scientists and engineers in his
team, at the VP and C-level, to make sure they are on top and paid at least
equally well if not better, compared to anyone else, including marketing and
sales drones.

------
kablamo
Leadership:

\- Turn The Ship Around (Marquet) - make everyone a leader \- The Effective
Engineer (Lau) - leadership for engineers \- Leadership, Strategy, and Tactics
(Jocko) - leadership in military/business \- Good To Great (Collins) - good
companies vs great ones

How to get better at everything:

\- Mindset (Dwek) - growth vs fixed mindset \- Atomic Habits (Clear) -
automate good decisions w/habits \- Change Your Habits, Change your life
(Corley) - data driven selection of which habits matter \- Ultralearning
(Young) - how to learn anything faster \- Anything You Want (Sivers)

How to talk to humans

\- Difficult Conversations (Stone) - how to talk to humans \- Never Split the
Difference (Voss) - every conversation is a negotiation \- Death By Meeting
(Lencioni) - short fable \- anything else by Patrick Lencioni

Prioritization and focus:

\- The One Thing (Keller) - prioritization \- Deep Work (Calport) - focus \-
Indistractable (Li) - focus

See also anything by: Jason Friedman, Jim Collins, Patrick Lencioni, Peter
Drucker and biographies in general

------
edorsey
Didn’t see this mentioned anywhere:

Notes to a Software Team Leader by Roy Osherove

------
markstos
"Messages" by Matthew McKay.

"Mindset" by Carol Dweck.

------
ajb413
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

------
tonioab
"Becoming better" points to the question of what is a good tech leader and how
you can evaluate yourself as you make progress on this path. In my experience
and according to Google's research in this area
([https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/managers-identify-
what-...](https://rework.withgoogle.com/guides/managers-identify-what-makes-a-
great-manager/steps/learn-about-googles-manager-research/)), there are
specific traits to cultivate:

1\. Is a good coach / Supports career discussions and discusses performance

"Leader As Coach: Strategies for Coaching & Developing Others" by Mary Dee
Hicks and David Peterson. An in-depth, very practical manual on how to coach
your reports according to their specific needs and personalities.

"Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking When Stakes Are High" by Kerry
Patterson et al. Helps you prepare and approach difficult conversations with
empathy. Especially useful for performance conversations.

2\. Creates an inclusive team environment, showing concern for success and
well-being

"The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable" by Patrick Lencioni. If
there is one book to read about team dynamics, this is the one.

"First, Break All the Rules" by Marcus Buckingham. Slightly more general than
the 5 dysfunctions, but with a lot of good content about psychological safety
and what makes team work.

3\. Has a clear vision & strategy / is a good communicator

"High output management" by Andy Grove. Probably the most famous book on this
list. It gives you a good introduction to setting goals, communicating about
your team's work inwards and outwards. It also features more "system thinking"
than the other books - how everything fits together as organizations scale,
which is useful for developing vision and strategy.

I'd also recommend reading biographies and memoirs of famous leaders (e.g.
Churchill, Marcus Aurelius). Strategic thinking can be easier to learn through
examples and pattern recognition than through abstract / self-help books.

4\. Is productive and results-oriented / has key technical skills to advise
the team

A lot of new managers over-index on the people management side of the job and
forget about the key responsibility of a technical leader: choosing a
direction, leading others in this direction and delivering results.

"Accelerate: The Science of Lean Software and DevOps: Building and Scaling
High Performing Technology Organizations" by Nicole Forsgren et al. One of the
most recent, well-researched books into how to measure the productivity and
quality of software teams.

"The Art of Scalability: Scalable Web Architecture, Processes, and
Organizations for the Modern Enterprise" by Martin Abbott et al. This book
uniquely blends the technical, organizational and people management aspects of
technical leadership.

------
just-juan-post
> Do you have any recommendation on what should I do

Research. Why? Because this question has been asked dozens if not hundreds of
times.

~~~
jeffbee
One of the skills of a tech lead (or parent, or anyone) is recognizing when a
person may just be seeking recognition and politely playing along.

~~~
bJGVygG7MQVF8c
Personally I think people with sports and military backgrounds have the
soundest perspectives on leadership.

The sociology of software engineering biases the perspectives on leadership
therein toward this kind of contempt for subordinates.

~~~
jeffbee
Great point. Who has better perspective on teamwork than people who spent
their life in real teams? Life experience is an area where tech really needs
to diversify. Hire ex-military, hire rugby players, philosophers, political
scientists.

------
lawwantsin17
Managers are useless guards for the bosses. Quit immediately and let those
engineers manager themselves.

~~~
kevsim
Sounds like either you’ve had bad managers or you need to invest in a quality
mirror

