links for 2006-11-04
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A nice write up on what’s missing in leadership/management, especially the software industry.
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November 10th, 2006 at 10:38 am
That article was actually really good. From a rote perspective, I’ve always thought that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs made the most sense to me in terms of management (but not leadership). I really think managers should do their best to give people everything they can with regards to those needs.
However, a leader (which I think is different than a manager) should inspire. And inspiration usually equates to communicating a mission and a vision.
I think the ideal situation is where employees have a manager who tends to your real needs (according to Maslow)… and a leader who gives employees a real vision and mission and inspires a person to go after it. Sometimes they might be the same person… sometimes not.
Companies like Southwest Airlines, Google, Microsoft seem like good examples of good management as well as leadership and vision.
November 15th, 2006 at 12:27 am
Agreed. I think good leaders can do both. In the technical world, there seems to be a fear of empowering some with great leadership skills due to a lack of \”domain\” knowledge. As Charles notes, this can be done by training existing techies to become leaders, or as I have suggested, this can also be done by believing in the leadership need and trusting non-techies to provide this skill.