The Accidental Boss

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Showing posts from November, 2018

A 10x Developer != A Leader (And Why That's OK)

In a perfect world, we'd enjoy teams bursting with natural leaders, self-driven individuals who can handle any situation under any degree of pressure, identify and prioritize the tasks, assign and delegate said tasks, encouraging and mentoring each other, until the team jells with profound efficiency. In the real world, there are plenty of teams adept at software construction that produce amazing creations and are comprised of developers that possess absolutely zero interest in becoming leaders . Nor is it necessary. In order to get to the bottom of this, you're going to need to know the secret ingredient: Band-aids. The Life of Expertise Let's start this rant by understanding what it means to be a 10x developer: a developer that is measurably proficient at what they do (for a greater breakdown of the 10x developer, read this related post ). Gaining proficiency in a trade is a result of either: increasing depth , or increasing breadth of knowled...

10x Developers, Compassionate Bosses, and Other Mythological Creatures

The myth of the 10x developer is so pervasive, debate as to whether it actually exists continues to this day. Crazy talk! Next thing you know, they'll be claiming there's such a thing as a manager that actually cares about your psychological well-being. The audacity of such a thought! How foolish! How positively naive! Allow me to propose a radical notion: What if they do exist, but are just so hard to find, nobody believes it? Allow me to propose one more: What if we're having a hard time finding them because we can't agree on what defines such a creature? Not A Thing Let's start with what a 10x developer is not (something we can all agree on!) A 10x developer is not a developer that writes ten times more code than their peers, A 10x developer is not measured by SPH (Semi-colons Per Hour), and A 10x developer is not someone who makes their teammates 10x better. 1. Amount of Code: Doesn't Matter Ask any programmer worth their salt and the...

Don't Be a Lumbergh!

It finally happened. You're the boss. After cutting your teeth in an industry for years, the powers that be have given you an opportunity to prove you've got the leadership skills to match your deep technical knowledge. The promotion is yours; the raise is in the bank. All that's left is for you to step up to the plate. Yet you can't get this recurring thought out of your head: You weren't formally trained as a manager; it's only a matter of time before you're found out . This everlasting anxiety makes it clear the honeymoon is over; the confetti long since settled to the floor. Harsh realities have since taken shape: You keep wanting to do things yourself when you have a perfectly good team that's willing and able. Your team doesn't deliver as fast as you did. The other middle managers you have to work with are showing their true colors: they're inept, they're inefficient or (worst of all), they have no intention of working wi...