"That man might never make a mark in the broader society but I could see he would be a fine leader wherever his life circumstances took him."
Ah the leadership question...
Being a few years past high school, it's interesting to look at many people who seemed like leaders but never made it.
Some times it was life-circumstances. But I think think there is also a too-great a willingness to merely work hard at what presented itself.
There much that has been said on this but it's worth mentioning that to reach a certain level of leadership, while you can continue leading a bit by example, you have to be mainly willing to delegate a lot of the actual work. Essentially, you have to be able to use people. It's more than positive vibes.
In software, in particular, inspiration has never been part of the equation for any good manager manager I've had. Instead, saying what mattered and getting out of the way has always been key. Don't lead technical people by example. Don't clean our bathrooms or our code. "Mr. Energy" would not be welcome here. And I've had too many managers who were bad because they never learned the lesson that their job was no longer coding or even "inspiring" but organizing and bureaucracy-hacking.
There is so much to be said here. When I first had the idea for the project i'm on now I decided to find someone to help me with the business tasks, and I found another person who knew the domain better then me. It took a few months, but eventually I found them. Then something weird happened. We were all in the same room, I had brought them both there because I knew they were the best! however I somehow couldn't allow myself to let them do the things they needed to do. For some reason, I still knew more than my domain expert, I was going to make better business decisions than my business guy. The meeting was great for meeting everyone, but in terms of progress none was made.
Then they found my weak spot. We went out for lunch at a bar, and for some reason never left the bar. After many beers, I had this drunken vision that I was doing things wrong! So I went home, and said to myself hey i'm the tech guy, i'm just going to worry about the tech, and let these guys do the things they need to do. Thats when the progress ball rolled down the hill.
Ah the leadership question...
Being a few years past high school, it's interesting to look at many people who seemed like leaders but never made it.
Some times it was life-circumstances. But I think think there is also a too-great a willingness to merely work hard at what presented itself.
There much that has been said on this but it's worth mentioning that to reach a certain level of leadership, while you can continue leading a bit by example, you have to be mainly willing to delegate a lot of the actual work. Essentially, you have to be able to use people. It's more than positive vibes.
In software, in particular, inspiration has never been part of the equation for any good manager manager I've had. Instead, saying what mattered and getting out of the way has always been key. Don't lead technical people by example. Don't clean our bathrooms or our code. "Mr. Energy" would not be welcome here. And I've had too many managers who were bad because they never learned the lesson that their job was no longer coding or even "inspiring" but organizing and bureaucracy-hacking.