{"id":422,"date":"2012-02-10T09:28:05","date_gmt":"2012-02-10T17:28:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/?p=422"},"modified":"2012-02-10T09:29:46","modified_gmt":"2012-02-10T17:29:46","slug":"the-secrets-of-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/the-secrets-of-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"The Secrets of Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Michael Larsen posted a review<\/a> of Weinberg\u2019s book, The Secrets of Consulting<\/a>. I\u2019ve been meaning to share a few thoughts about this book for at least year, so I thank Michael for spurring me to finally share my thoughts and experiences with TSoC.<\/p>\n

If you haven\u2019t read this book, I bet it\u2019s because the title scared you away. You\u2019re probably thinking, \u201cI\u2019m not a consultant, this book is irrelevant\u201d. For those thinking that, or for any others reading right now, I\u2019ll tell you this. I have read (and in some cases studied), over 40 books on leadership \u2013 and this is one of the best I\u2019ve ever read on the subject.<\/p>\n

When people get to \u201cSenior\u201d roles at Microsoft<\/a>, one of the things we expect is an ability to influence without authority, work through others, and basically make those around you better. For our introverted tech geeks, this is often a big wall to climb. Inevitably, when one of these Senior non\u2014manager folks tracks me down and asks, \u201cHow can I get better at influence?\u201d, or \u201cHow can I get others to accept my ideas?\u201d, I hand them a copy of this book (I\u2019ve done my best to pad Mr. Weinberg\u2019s royalties with the dozen or so copies of this book I\u2019ve purchased over the years). You see, being a good consultant, and being a good leader are pretty much the same thing. Some of my takeaways are below (adapted heavily to my usage over the years).<\/p>\n

Good consultants know how to define the real problem at hand \u2013 they see what\u2019s there, and what\u2019s not there, and come up with a solution (or multiple solutions). I would hope, that if you\u2019re a leader, you\u2019d do the same.<\/p>\n

Good consultants are humble \u2013 they don\u2019t pretend to know it all, and know when to admit when they don\u2019t. Your fee (or your title if you\u2019re not a consultant) doesn\u2019t mean you\u2019re always right. It does mean, however, that you always need to help the team improve.<\/p>\n

Establish and maintain trust. I can\u2019t say enough about how much I value trust as a leadership attribute. The chapter on trust is critical for any leader.<\/p>\n

Worry about the accomplishment, not the credit. This one rings home at MS, where our (ahem) review system often drives people to focus on credit rather than outcomes. The punch line, is that in my experience, the weight of the accomplishment always outweighs the weight of who did what. Just worry about making your projects successful, and the rewards will follow.<\/p>\n

And given the hundred or so bullet points of wisdom sprinkled throughout the book, I\u2019d say the meta-takeaway is that you have a good leadership toolbox. If something doesn\u2019t work, doing it again louder won\u2019t help \u2013 do something different. Use another leadership tool, or experiment. Nobody has time (or money) for a one-trick pony.<\/p>\n

Now \u2013 to be fair, several points in the book are specifically for consulting \u2013 but if you read this book looking for leadership advice, that\u2019s exactly what you\u2019ll find (and you\u2019ll barely notice the n\/z sections).<\/p>\n

What are you waiting for \u2013 go learn how to be a leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, Michael Larsen posted a review of Weinberg\u2019s book, The Secrets of Consulting. I\u2019ve been meaning to share a few thoughts about this book for at least year, so I thank Michael for spurring me to finally share my thoughts and experiences with TSoC. If you haven\u2019t read this book, I bet it\u2019s because the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/angryweasel.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}