Chapter 1. Striving toward a Team Leader Manifesto
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
This chapter covers
- Principles of leadership
- How to become and remain a good leader
- Developing other leaders from your peers—growing people
This chapter outlines the principles for becoming, and remaining, a good leader, and also developing other leaders from among your peers.
Leadership in general—and team leadership in the software business in particular, where little training, if any, is provided—isn’t easy to accomplish, or indeed to measure. We can begin with the assumption that most people in software—like you—have no idea what they’re doing or what they should be looking at when leading their software teams. Yes, that was me too.
This book springs from my personal experience of what worked for me and what didn’t work for me when I was leading software teams.
One thing is certain: the way we work with our teams must improve. We must become better adjusted to the current reality and needs of our team, our business, and ourselves.