Leadership Reading – Weekly Article Dump – August 2nd 2013

Here’s the collection of articles I’ve shared on social media outlets over the past week. There’s a whole bunch on leadership topics, so I hope you enjoy!

  • How Not to Mint More Engineers: Another spin on the whole engineering-tuition-should-cost more debate.
  • 12 Ways to Spot a High Achiever: High achievers are often very passionate about what they do and make great employees. Here are some tips for spotting them!
  • 7 Qualities Of A Truly Loyal Employee: It’s difficult to disagree with any of these. They’re all spot on! Being a loyal employee is not about satisfying only one person or satisfying only yourself… It’s about voicing your opinion and trying to ensure the company is heading in the right direction.
  • The Best Career Advice You Won’t Want To Hear: Some interesting perspectives on what can help create a successful career.
  • What The Success Of Breaking Bad Teaches Us About Leadership: This article makes one point that I really like: empower others to play their strengths–NOT yours. You can play your own strengths, but empower others so that they can excel at all the places you don’t.
  • When to Accept (or Reject) Critical Feedback: This article provides you with an approach for something that can be hard to handle… being provided with critical feedback. Getting solid critical feedback is rare, but it’s important you know how to deal with it when you do receive it!
  • Unleashing Your Inner Thought Leader: I guess this kind of thing is why I started my own blog 🙂
  • Unlocking the 10X Professional: I’ve never heard of “chunking” before, but this article claims it’s important for unlocking super-star employees. I might have some additional reading to do!
  • Don’t Bother to Apply Here: This is certainly one place I wouldn’t bother to apply to. I mean, if you can’t deal with sarcastic ranting, you and I would never get a long anyway. Too bad for you, because this is The Internet that we all share. You might just have to put up with it. And if you don’t think an opinionated rant can’t be filled with insight, it just might be your first time on The Internet. In that case, my apologies… Welcome, and don’t let the door hit you on the way out.
  • One Way to Improve Innovation and Creativity: So I teased this one on Twitter and LinkedIn a bit (if you can read while you’re working out, it’s because you’re not working out), but I think there’s some great points. Veer out of your comfort zone. Work with people who aren’t your closest and best friend. Mix your expertise!
  • Eating and Dreaming: Jack Welch puts it pretty elegantly: Management is balancing the paradox that is long and short term leadership.
  • A Menu of Very Small Changes to Boost Your Happiness at Work: While I liked a lot of these tips, a couple I didn’t. Specifically, taking 10 minutes every hour as a break for developers can be a problem, in my opinion. It breaks flow, which is sometimes nearly impossible to achieve and even to maintain once you have it. Additionally, being ignorant to things that don’t concern you can make your life less stressful (and I guess that’s the goal of the article) but… Knowing more is what helps me sleep at night.
  • The Art of the Stop: Do you know when to stop? Do you know when to pause a project? What about shifting gears on a team member that may not be suitable for their current team? Knowing when to stop going down a particular path is an art.
  • The Wisdom Principle: Maybe not groundbreaking for some, but a great reminder of what being wise truly means.

Hope you enjoyed! Remember to follow on popular social media outlets to get these updates through the week!

Nick Cosentino – LinkedIn
Nick Cosentino – Twitter
Dev Leader – Facebook
Dev Leader – Google+

author avatar
Nick Cosentino Principal Software Engineering Manager
Principal Software Engineering Manager at Microsoft. Views are my own.

Leave a Reply