5 Virtues for leading people

 

This chapter covers

  • Growing the team with coaching, mentoring, and advising
  • Representing the team confidently and contributing to broader management duties
  • Observing and mitigating system anti-patterns and learning from incidents
  • Driving clarity by distilling complex issues into concise narratives
  • Managing the maker’s schedule versus the manager’s schedule

As a manager or staff data scientist, you have the responsibility to practice effective DS and nurture your team members’ habits with DS best practices. These virtues are the habitual actions that are etched into your character as a DS practitioner.

Ethics are the standards of conduct at work that enable data scientists to avoid unnecessary and self-inflicted breakdowns. For DS managers and staff data scientists, this involves nurturing the team with coaching, mentoring, advising, confidently representing DS in cross-functional discussions, and constructively contributing reviews for systems touching DS.

Rigor is the craftsmanship and diligence with which we approach DS. This involves thinking bigger by taking the lead in maintaining reliable results, thinking deeper to diagnose effectively, triaging, learning from incidents, and simplifying complex issues by distilling them into concise explanations for partners.

5.1 Ethical standards of conduct

5.1.1 Growing the team with coaching, mentoring, and advising

5.1.2 Representing the team confidently in cross-functional discussions

5.1.3 Contributing to and reciprocating on broader management duties

5.2 Rigor nurturing, higher standards

5.2.1 Observing and mitigating anti-patterns in ML and DS systems

5.2.2 Learning effectively from incidents

5.2.3 Driving clarity by distilling complex issues into concise narratives

5.3 Attitude of positivity