I'm currently mentoring new tech leads, and I'm using books heavily as a tool. I usually break a book into two or three parts which we discuss and try to apply to our every-day problems. It works quite well.
However the biggest challenge I had wasn't finding good leadership books, but narrowing my list of books down.
I currently read with my mentees:
- The Managers Path
- Elastic Leadership
- Simply Said: Communicating Better at Work and Beyond
- Nonviolent communication
"Simply Said" is a good example for my struggle: I picked it because I needed a single book that covers written communication, presentations, body language, focus on the needs of the person communicated to etc.
There are surely better books for each topic individually, but picking a single one was tough!
That’s our company’s book, written by our managing partner, Jay Sullivan. I was pleasantly surprised to see it pop up while browsing HN.
What’s one thing you learned from the book that’s been helpful for you?
(Nonviolent Communication is also a good one that’s on my reading list)
As you look to put things into practice from the resources you find here, I’d love to offer myself up to help in your learning journey. I run a 100% free mentoring service for live 1:1 conversations with managers and leaders. In the past 12 months, I’ve met with over 100 managers, and I’ve held over 150 sessions. I do sessions 5 days a week, and I’ve met truly wonderful people from this community through this service project.
Hope to talk with you soon!
1. Turn The Ship Around: A True Story of Building Leaders by Breaking the Rules
2. The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter
3. Principles: Life and Work
Missing from the Architecture & System Design list is Martin Kleppmann's Designing Data Intensive Application, IMO the best modern book on systems / scalability.
