The Art of Leadership : Small Things, Done Well

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. Cover Copyright Table of Contents Foreword Introduction How to Use This Book O’Reilly Online Learning How to Contact Us Acknowledgments Small Things Act I. Netscape: Manager Chapter 1. Assume They Have Something to Teach You Chapter 2. Meeting Blur Too Much On the Topic of Operational Excellence Chapter 3. The Situation Capital-S Situations Capital-D Decisions Chapter 4. Act Last, Read the Room, and Taste the Soup Act Last Read the Room Taste the Soup Chapter 5. Spidey-Sense Understanding Spidey-Sense Wait, What? That’s the Small Thing? Live Life? Thanks, Lopp. Trusting Spidey-Sense Something Is Up, and I Don’t Know What Chapter 6. Your Professional Growth Questionnaire The Professional Growth Questionnaire The Questions Always Forward A Tangible Follow-Up Chapter 7. A Performance Question The Checklist Sentence Reality Changes Chapter 8. Rands Information Practices Browser Phone Email Life Chapter 9. The New Manager Death Spiral BANG First, They Tell You Then, They Tell Each Other Management Is Not a Promotion Act II. Apple: Director Chapter 10. The Blue Tape List Everything Is Broken A Spectrum to the Broken Chapter 11. Delegate Until It Hurts Entrust Shush, Little Voice An Essential Leadership-Scaling Function Chapter 12. How to Recruit First Rule of Recruiting: Give It 50% A Recruiting Primer Discover, Understand, and Delight Discover Understand Delight Circling Back to 50% of Your Time Chapter 13. Gossip, Rumors, and Lies An Unacceptable Amount of Crap A Well-Intentioned Hatred of Meetings A Three-Point Agenda Meetings Are a Symptom, Not the Cure Chapter 14. Rainbows and Unicorns Moments of Disproportionate Satisfaction Duh The Compliment Breakdown A Compliment Career Shift Chapter 15. Say the Hard Thing The Voice in Your Head Saying the Hard Thing Hearing the Hard Thing Your Goal in Life Chapter 16. Everything Breaks Third Time’s a Charm Game On With Alarming Predictability Provide A Clear Explanation of the Rules Allow the Rules to Evolve in Unexpected Ways Play, Learn, and Repeat Failure as a Competitive Differentiator (Or, Don’t Play Dumb Games Twice) Chapter 17. The Org Chart Test The Legibility Test The Basics at Scale Chapter 18. A Distributed Meeting Primer Remote The “Many People” Meeting Pre-Meeting During Post-Meeting No Measurable Difference Act III. Slack: Executive Chapter 19. Allergic to Wisdom A Circus of Failure When to Innovate and When to Iterate Act Without Asking Chapter 20. The Guard The Disaster Meeting The Productive Team Teams Learned Helplessness Trust Falls for Everyone! Never Waste a Disaster Chapter 21. The Culture Creek An Unchangeable Culture Listen for the Stories The Culture Creek Chapter 22. Anti-Flow Applied Anti-Flow Weaponized Inspiration Generation Chapter 23. A Meritocracy Is a Trailing Indicator Two Paths Two Equal Paths The Growth Tax Leadership Comes from Everywhere A Trailing Indicator Chapter 24. How to Build a Rumor Gray Space Conformity The Severity of Nonsense Rumors Are a Function of Culture Chapter 25. Kobayashi Maru Management A Test of Character A System Failure A Perfect Kobayashi A Proper Preparation A Prediction of the Unpredictable Chapter 26. The Signal Network Critical Freshness Your Signal Network No Surprises High-Signal Humans Chapter 27. A Precious Hour The State of Busy Is Seductive The Faux-Zone A Precious Hour An Insidious Situation Chapter 28. Find a Mentor What Could Go Wrong? Sucker Punch My Mentor Requirements “Get the F—k Out of There” Chapter 29. How to Rands Our Average Week North Star Principles Feedback Protocol Meeting Protocol Nuance and Errata Chapter 30. Be Unfailingly Kind Regarding Colorful Personalities and Opinions Raid Mechanics No Worries... Regarding Jerks One for Your Pocket Epilogue: The Way I Heard It Was... Interlude: The Test Small Steps Index About the Author Adopter la technique des petits pas fait toute la différence dans la carrière d'un leader affirme Michael Lopp, un ex-ingénieur devenu cadre dirigeant dans la Silicon Valley. L'auteur raconte comment il a gravi les échelons chez Netscape, Apple et Slack dans une autobiographie en trois actes qui révèle ce qu'implique le rôle de manager, de directeur et de cadre dirigeant. Lopp encourage tous les dirigeants, du cadre novice au plus aguerri, à prendre au sérieux les moindres détails, qu'il s'agisse de recruter, de déléguer, d'organiser des réunions, de gérer des 'crises avec un grand C', de maîtriser les rumeurs, etc. Ses anecdotes donnent vie aux sujets les plus anodins, et le chapitre abordant les situations sans issue amusera sans aucun doute les fans de Star Trek "Many people think leadership is a higher calling that exclusively resides in managers who practice or follow big compelling leadership philosophies. But what's most important for leadership is principled consistency, because small things done well build trust and respect within a team. Using stories from his time at Apple, Pinterest and Slack, Michael Lopp-VP of Engineering at Slack-presents a series of leadership practices that help you build leadership skills. You'll learn how to create teams that are highly productive, highly respected, and highly trusted." -- Provided by publisher