The Engineering Leader

Table of contents

1. Foreword
2. Preface
   1. Who the Book Is For
   2. Organization of the Book
   3. O’Reilly Online Learning
   4. How to Contact Us
   5. Acknowledgements
3. I. You
4. DRIing Your Career
   1. Career Decisions and Optimizations
   2. Setting and Executing on Career Goals
   3. Becoming More Coachable
   4. Knowing When to Move on (and to What)
   5. Owning Your DRI Responsibilities
5. 1. Career Decisions and Optimizations
   1. Expecting More from Your Career and Less from Your Job
      1. Planning for Opportunity
      2. The Work > The Title
      3. Defining the Moment
   2. Distinguishing What Your Employer Rents Versus What They Buy
      1. Rent
      2. Buy
      3. Trade-offs
6. 2. Setting and Executing on Career Goals
   1. Owning Your Professional Development
      1. What
      2. Why
      3. Resources
      4. Support
      5. Opportunity
      6. Putting It Together
   2. Building Your Support System
      1. Manager
      2. Skip-Level Manager
      3. Peers
      4. Mentors
      5. Sponsors
      6. Coach
      7. Professional Network
      8. Work BFFs
7. 3. Embracing Growth
   1. The Gap Between Capability and Requirements
      1. High Actionability with High Receptiveness
      2. High Actionability with Low Receptiveness
      3. Low Actionability with High Receptiveness
      4. Low Actionability with Low Receptiveness
   2. Becoming More Coachable
      1. Build Your Self-Awareness
      2. Broaden Your Perspective
      3. Shed Your Defensiveness
      4. Own Up
      5. Ask for Advice
   3. Bad Feedback
      1. Ignores Broader Context
      2. Negates Your Input
      3. Undermines Rather than Helps You Succeed
   4. Key Takeaways
8. 4. Moving Forward
   1. Signs It’s Time to Move On
      1. You’re Not Learning (and You Want to Be)
      2. You’re Learning Coping Mechanisms Rather than Skills
      3. You Feel Morally Conflicted About Hiring
      4. Your Job Is Affecting Your Confidence
      5. Your Job Is Affecting You Physically
      6. Making Decisions
   2. Your Action Plan to DRI Your Career
9. Section 1 Summary
10. Self-Management
11. 5. Energy Management
    1. Managing Energy Versus Managing Time
    2. The Trap of Being Useful
    3. Navigating Burnout
       1. Understand the Context
       2. Identify the Causes
       3. Work Toward Change
       4. Giver Burnout
    4. Better Energy Management
12. 6. Defining and Adapting Your Role
    1. The Components of Management
       1. Direction
       2. Feedback
       3. Practical Help
       4. Support
       5. Managing Down
       6. Managing Up
    2. The Role of Strategy in Management
       1. ↓People && ↑Scope: Layoffs
       2. =People && =Scope: Stability
       3. ↑People && ↓Scope: Consolidation
       4. Approaching Struggling Teams
    3. Letting Go: Why Your Job Should Change Regularly
       1. You Don’t Want to Confront the New Challenges Faced by Your Team?
       2. You’re Afraid to Give Things Up?
       3. You’re Afraid to Take on Something New?
13. 7. Expanding Your Leadership Range
    1. Identifying Failure Modes
       1. CliftonStrengths Assessment
       2. Positive Intelligence
    2. Communication Failure Modes
       1. Lack of Depth
       2. Conflicting Context
       3. Too Much Empathy
       4. Missing Empathy
       5. Assuming Unearned Trust
    3. Growing Your Impact
       1. Scope
       2. Complexity
       3. Output
       4. Agenda
    4. Understanding and Expanding Your Leadership Styles
       1. Pacesetting
       2. Authoritative
       3. Affiliative
       4. Coaching
       5. Coercive
       6. Democratic
       7. Where to Begin?
    5. Navigating Change
       1. There Are No Heroes
       2. High Performers and Low Performers Struggle Most
       3. All Process Is Contextual
       4. You Will Make Mistakes
    6. Your Action Plan for Self-Management
14. Section 2 Summary
15. II. Team
16. Scaling Teams
17. 8. Hiring That Scales
    1. Assessing the Current State of Your Hiring Process
       1. Metrics
       2. Feelings
    2. Prework for Improving the Diversity of Your Team
       1. Brand Awareness
       2. Play a Long Game
       3. Advertising
       4. Targeted Outreach
    3. Improving Evaluations
       1. Job Descriptions
       2. Resume Review
       3. Evaluations
       4. Assessing Trajectory
    4. Better Interviews
       1. Types of Interviews and What to Evaluate in an Interview
       2. Take-Home Assignments
       3. Additional Considerations
       4. Interviewing Effectively
    5. Your Plan to Fix Your Hiring Process
       1. Step 1: Know Your Numbers
       2. Step 2: Understand What You’re Looking For
       3. Step 3: Calibrate, Calibrate, Calibrate
       4. Step 4: Debug Your Process
       5. Step 5: Stop Looking for a Straight Line
18. 9. Making People Successful
    1. Effective 1:1s
    2. The Value of Complaining
    3. Onboarding
       1. Belonging
       2. Accomplishment
       3. Impact
       4. Implementation
    4. Supporting
       1. Building a Culture of Helping
       2. Choose Being Kind over Being Nice
       3. Performance Management
    5. Finding Balance
19. 10. Building a Bench
    1. Identifying and Developing Potential
       1. Identifying Potential
       2. Feedback Culture
       3. Developing Potential
    2. Hiring External Leadership
       1. Developing a Good Rationale
       2. Clarifying Responsibility
       3. Hiring Effectively for Leadership
       4. Successful Onboarding
    3. Making Change
    4. Your Action Plan to Scale Your Team
20. Section 3 Summary
21. Self-Improving Teams
22. 11. Mission and Strategy
    1. Constructing a Mission
       1. Case Study: WordPress Mobile
       2. Case Study: Developing a Mission for a Distributed Team
       3. Case Study: Aligning Developer Experience
       4. Determining the Mission
    2. Determining a Strategy
       1. Case Study: Scaling Hiring
       2. Case Study: Onfido Studio
       3. Case Study: Building the Mobile Infrastructure Team at Automattic
    3. Developing the Strategy
    4. Making the Mission and Strategy Work Together
23. 12. Tactics and Execution
    1. Defining the Layers
       1. The Mission
       2. The Strategy
       3. The Tactics
       4. The Execution
       5. Meta
       6. Mapping
    2. Developing Tactics
       1. Case Study: The Accidental Introduction of Deadlines
       2. Case Study: People and Process
       3. Building the Process Layer
    3. Driving Execution
       1. Case Study: Building Strategic Alignment Toward Execution
       2. Case Study: The Daily Standup
       3. Case Study: The Never-Ending Activity Feed
       4. Getting Sh*t Done
    4. Tactics + Execution = Effective Day-to-Day
24. 13. Driving Improvement
    1. Creating Clarity
       1. Creating Clarity: Mission
       2. Creating Clarity: Strategy
       3. Creating Clarity: Tactics
       4. Creating Clarity: Execution
       5. Things to Consider
    2. Creating Capacity
       1. Creating Capacity: Mission
       2. Creating Capacity: Strategy
       3. Creating Capacity: Tactics
       4. Creating Capacity: Execution
       5. Things to Consider
    3. Aligning Incentives
       1. Aligning Incentives: Mission and Strategy
       2. Aligning Incentives: Tactics
       3. Aligning Incentives: Execution
       4. Things to Consider
    4. Building Feedback Loops
       1. Building Feedback Loops: Mission and Strategy
       2. Building Feedback Loops: Tactics
       3. Building Feedback Loops: Execution
       4. Things to Consider
    5. Where to Begin
    6. Your Action Plan for Making Your Team Self-Improving
25. Section 4 Summary
26. III. Conclusion
27. 14. What Good Looks Like
    1. What Good Looks Like in a Team
       1. Logistics
       2. Chitchat
       3. Positive Reinforcement and Recognition
       4. Meta Chat
       5. Constructive Feedback
       6. Healthy Conflict
    2. What Good Looks Like in Leadership
       1. Can You Take a Week Off?
       2. Can Problems Be Handled Without You?
       3. Does Your Team Deliver Consistently?
       4. Do People Tell You What They Think?
       5. Do People on the Team Treat One Another Well?
       6. Is the Team Self-Improving?
       7. Can You Give People Who Report to You Meaningful, In-Depth Feedback?
       8. What Kinds of Things Can You Delegate?
       9. Who Is Taking on Bigger Roles?
       10. Can You Take on Work Outside of Your Immediate Scope?
       11. Do Your Peers Value Your Perspective and Come to You for Advice?
    3. Does Your Team Need to Rebrand?
       1. Rebranding Projects
       2. Owning Achievements
       3. Marking Progress
       4. Clear Retrospectives
       5. Rebranding People
       6. Starting at the End
    4. What Now?
28. A. Team Strategy
    1. ↓ People && ↓ Scope: Deprecation
       1. What to Consider
       2. What to Worry About
    2. ↓People && =Scope: Efficiencies
       1. What to Consider
       2. What to Worry About
    3. ↓People && ↑Scope: Layoffs
    4. =People && ↓Scope: Reorganization
       1. What to Consider
       2. What to Worry About
    5. =People && =Scope: Stability
    6. =People && ↑Scope: Expansion
       1. What to Consider
       2. What to Worry About
    7. ↑People && ↓Scope: Consolidation
    8. ↑People && =Scope: Growth
       1. What to Consider
       2. What to Worry About
    9. ↑People && ↑Scope: High Growth!
       1. What to Consider
       2. What to Worry About
29. B. Reading List
30. Index
31. About the Author