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)
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
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!
Missing from the Architecture & System Design list is Martin Kleppmann's Designing Data Intensive Application, IMO the best modern book on systems / scalability.
