{"id":596,"date":"2007-03-15T23:12:51","date_gmt":"2007-03-16T03:12:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/15\/becoming-a-technical-leader-by-gerald-m-weinberg\/"},"modified":"2007-03-15T23:14:49","modified_gmt":"2007-03-16T03:14:49","slug":"becoming-a-technical-leader-by-gerald-m-weinberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/15\/becoming-a-technical-leader-by-gerald-m-weinberg\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming a Technical Leader, by Gerald M. Weinberg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A href=http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0932633021\/ericnehrlisho-20>Amazon link<\/a><\/p>\n<p>This was recommended to me by a friend as a great book on becoming a leader and manager.<\/p>\n<p>The book reminds me of <a href=http:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/2006\/03\/20\/how-to-win-friends-and-influence-people-by-dale-carnegie\/>How to Win Friends and Influence People<\/a> in that the advice is deceptively simple.  If I had read this book even five years ago, I think I would have dismissed it as being simplistic and obvious.  For instance, Weinberg describes problem-solving leadership as consisting of &#8220;understanding the problem&#8221;, &#8220;managing the flow of ideas&#8221;, and &#8220;maintaining quality&#8221;, which seem like completely generic management strategies.  But with experience at several companies and with the examples that Weinberg uses, I can see how breakdowns in these areas will hamstring any project before it even starts.  This is an example of how my greater experience lets me <A href=http:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/2006\/04\/27\/the-fundamental-interconnectedness-of-all-things\/>find the value in different perspectives<\/A>.<\/p>\n<p>He also emphasizes the difficulty of achieving a leadership orientation.  <a href=http:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/2007\/03\/14\/management-is-an-attitude\/>My post about the attitude of management<\/A> was inspired in large part by reading this book and the ideas that it evoked in me.  He points out that to take a big step up in competence often involves taking a step backwards first, and if we&#8217;re too afraid of that step down, we can never advance.<\/p>\n<p>I think I&#8217;ll be re-reading this book for many months.  I haven&#8217;t done many of the self-assessment exercises as I was on an airplane while reading it, although I have started doing the 5-minute daily journal that he recommends.  I may end up doing what a friend of a friend did with Dale Carnegie and re-read a chapter each day or week and try to apply those ideas to my life.<\/p>\n<p>Even though I found this book valuable, I found it difficult going in spots because it made me question a lot of what I thought I knew.  It certainly got me thinking about the larger issues associated with leadership.  This is not a book for the arrogant (as my younger self was), as they will not be willing to do the critical self-assessment necessary to benefit from the lessons here.  Heck, I&#8217;m still not sure I&#8217;m ready to benefit from this book.  We&#8217;ll see how the next little bit plays out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Amazon link This was recommended to me by a friend as a great book on becoming a leader and manager. The book reminds me of How to Win Friends and Influence People in that the advice is deceptively simple. If I had read this book even five years ago, I think I would have dismissed [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-management","category-nonfiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/596\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nehrlich.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}