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The Art of Leadership: Small Things, Done Well 1st Edition

by Michael Lopp (Author)
4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 309 ratings
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Many people think leadership is a higher calling that resides exclusively with a select few who practice and preach big, complex leadership philosophies. But as this practical book reveals, what’s most important for leadership is principled consistency. Time and again, small things done well build trust and respect within a team.

Using stories from his time at Netscape, Apple, and Slack, Michael Lopp presents a series of small but compelling practices to help you build leadership skills. You’ll learn how to create teams that are highly productive, highly respected, and highly trusted. Lopp has been speaking and writing about this topic for over a decade and now maintains a Slack leadership channel with over 13,000 members.

The essays in this book examine the practical skills Lopp learned from exceptional leaders―as a manager at Netscape, a senior manager and director at Apple, and an executive at Slack. You’ll learn how to apply these lessons to your own experience.

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  1. ISBN-10
    1492045691
  2. ISBN-13
    978-1492045694
  3. Edition
    1st
  4. Publisher
    O'Reilly Media
  5. Publication date
    June 23, 2020
  6. Language
    English
  7. Dimensions
    6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  8. Print length
    195 pages
  9. See all details
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From the Publisher

How to Use This Book

There are two ways you can approach reading this book: randomly or linearly. Let’s talk random first.

Like in my previous books, many of the chapters of this book are standalone. Coming from decades of writing on my blog, I have a penchant for self-contained chapters. Each of the chapters of this book contains at least one small thing.

To help you pick a small thing, I provide a list in the introduction of all the small things contained within the book. If you're looking for help on a particular small thing, you can skim this list and jump to wherever inspiration strikes.

The linear path within this book provides a more narrative structure. The book is broken into three acts, with each section representing a key leadership stage in my career: manager, director, and executive.

Each of these sections begins with a very brief history of the company where I truly learned about the role—Netscape, Apple, and Slack, respectively. These openers also contain brief descriptions of the responsibilities of the leader as a manager, a director, and an executive.

For any given chapter, you might start it and think, “Good idea.” Or you might think, “Well, that’s dumb.” You have the mutant power of knowing the time without ever looking at a clock. I wish I did, but I don’t, so whenever I enter a meeting my first move is to move a clock to face me—this is because I want to respect both the human I’m meeting with and the human I’m meeting with next.

Skip a chapter if it doesn’t speak to you.

This book is a comprehensive list of small things I've compiled over three decades of leadership, but I’m not actively using all of them. As each company culture is different, so is each team, and each team member. 1:1s are nonnegotiable in my book, but in some company cultures every meeting starts five minutes late, no matter how many times I show up two minutes early.

The Engineering Leader Leading Effective Engineering Teams The Art of Leadership: Small Things, Done Well The Engineering Executive's Primer: Impactful Technical Leadership The Manager's Path: A Guide for Tech Leaders Navigating Growth and Change The Staff Engineer's Path: A Guide for Individual Contributors Navigating Growth and Change
The Engineering Leader Leading Effective Engineering Teams The Art of Leadership The Engineering Executive's Primer The Manager's Path The Staff Engineer's Path
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What is it? A practical guide to becoming a well-rounded, career-minded, and resilient engineering leader. A research-backed guide to the essential principles, tips, and frameworks for building highly effective engineering teams. A collection of short essays providing simple, memorable leadership acts and practices. A primer on how to obtain your first executive job and quickly ramp up to meet the challenges you may not have encountered in non-executive roles. A guide to successfully navigating the different steps involved in transitioning from engineer to manager. A guide for growing as a technical expert and leader beyond the management track.
What you'll learn How to rethink career goals; tips on self-management; how to create healthy, diverse, and autonomous teams. What traits relate to engineering effectiveness; how to build trust and accountability within your team; how the most effective engineering teams work. How to uncover what's blocking your team, deal with information overload, find a mentor, delegate, find time for what matters, and much, much more. How to get an executive job and what to do you in your first 90 days. How to run a planning process, conduct core meetings, create a tech strategy, and manage yourself effectively. How to manage individuals, teams, multiple teams, and managers. How to be thoughtful about the culture of your engineering team. How to understand your role, master strategic thinking, drive big projects, and make everyone around you better.
Who is this book for? Managers looking for a model for how to balance personal and team needs. Technical leaders and managers who want to build effective software engineering teams. Managers, directors, and executives looking to improve their leadership acumen. Anyone in an engineering executive role, or anyone attempting to reach their first executive role. New or aspiring managers who need to get situated in their new role and learn, for the first time, how to lead teams. Staff and principal engineers looking to better understand and grow in their roles.
Who else is it for? Aspiring managers and individual contributors who want a better understanding of how things work. Individual contributors who want evidence-based guidance to improve their effectiveness. Anyone looking to develop their leadership skills. Anyone trying to better understand the engineering executive they work with. Experienced managers looking for guidance on how to deal with common problems in engineering management. Junior engineers interested in career growth on the individual contributor track.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Michael Lopp is a veteran Silicon Valley-based engineering leader who builds both people and product at historic companies such as Slack, Borland, Netscape, Palantir, Pinterest, and Apple. When he’s not deeply worrying about staying relevant, he writes about backpacks, bridges, humans, and leadership at the popular weblog, Rands in Repose. He currently works at Apple. This is the way.

Michael has written three books. His first book “Managing Humans, 3rd Edition” is a popular guide to the art of engineering leadership and clearly explains that while you will be rewarded for what you build, you will only be successful because of your people. His second book “Being Geek” is a career handbook for geeks and nerds alike. Michael’s third book, Small Things, Done Well, explains how focusing on the small parts of leadership is critical to becoming a better leader. Michael rides gravel bikes, wonders about semicolons, drinks red wine, and tries to understand how forests work amongst the redwoods of Northern California because curiosity is how you grow.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ O'Reilly Media; 1st edition (June 23, 2020)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 195 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1492045691
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1492045694
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.8 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.75 x 9 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 4.4 out of 5 stars 309 ratings

About the author

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Michael Lopp

Michael Lopp

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Michael Lopp is a veteran Silicon Valley-based engineering leader who builds both people and product at historic companies such as Borland, Netscape, Palantir, Pinterest, Slack, and Apple. While he's not deeply worrying about staying relevant, he writes about backpacks, bridges, people, leadership, and werewolves at the popular weblog Rands in Repose. He currently works at Apple on "things."

Michael has three books. His first book "Managing Humans, 4th Edition" is a popular guide to the art of engineering leadership and clearly explains that while you will be rewarded for what you build, you will only be successful because of your people. His second book, "Being Geek" is a career handbook for geeks and nerds alike. Michael's third book, "The Art of Leadership: Small Things, Done Well" was published in June of 2020.

Michael rides bikes in the mountains, splits wood, and drinks red wine amongst the redwoods of Northern California because staying sane is more important than staying busy.

Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
4.4 out of 5
309 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Dominik Rabiej
5.0 out of 5 stars Heartfelt and brilliant
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2020
Verified Purchase
This is a heartfelt and brilliant book.

If you, like me, have been reading the blog Rands in Repose for many a year -- or whether you're completely new to the mind of Rands -- a.k.a. Michael Lopp, you're in for a treat. I've been following the blog for something verging on 15 years but every "small thing" in this book is brand new.

The "small things" are like finely crafted gemstones -- faceted and polished to focus their light of wisdom. Each small thing manages to capture and distill an “unspoken truth” about what makes effective management and leadership (as well as the difference between them!)

The prose is direct, honest, and warm. Think of an old friend or mentor offering you advice for different stages of your career. The author spans the range: starting out as a manager, to a manager of managers (director), to a manager of manager of managers (executive). The description of the New Manager Death Spiral (Small Thing 9) is eerily accurate and worth the price of the book alone. The insights into and explanations of the thoughts and worries of directors (Delegate Until It Hurts, Small Thing 11) and executives (why they always seem to be fire-fighting and How to Build a Rumor, Small Thing 24) are incredibly valuable, whether you’re an executive or whether, like most, you (eventually) roll up and report into one.

There is much to learn from in this book -- it can be read straight through, but it also demands to be returned to, drawn upon in the movements when the poignant lesson of one of its “small things” might just what is needed.
8 people found this helpful
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Venkatesh
4.0 out of 5 stars Lots of good bits about managing and leading teams
Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2020
Verified Purchase
Relevant and actionable recommendations on leading and managing teams. The casual delivery makes the content more accessible. The bit about running distant meetings is on the money.
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Joe Lynch
5.0 out of 5 stars Enjoyable and insightful
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2022
Verified Purchase
It was a pleasure to read this book. In nearly every chapter I found myself laughing or agreeing with a non-trivial insight or at least one stated more plainly than I've heard it expressed before. This is someone that takes his craft seriously. I do think Software Engineering leaders will enjoy the book the most because of the small anecdotes that will be easier to connect to. But most of the insights are not domain-specific. I would suggest reading it slowly and savoring the items. Don't read more than a few at a time because the points that he makes are worth wrestling with. Don't expect to agree with everything. But expect that each nugget is hard-won and worthy of consideration.
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Sanath
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing book for leaders in tech industry
Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2022
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I was initially skeptical of buying this book. I already have Lopp’s managing humans book. But this one is entirely different. It goes a lot into the depth of being a leader or manager within a tech company - medium sized startups to tech giants. The practices listed here may not resonate with folks outside of tech industry. But for someone like me who is a growing manager in this industry, I found this be full of gold!
One person found this helpful
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KateLovesCode
3.0 out of 5 stars Unfocused but interesting
Reviewed in the United States on December 25, 2020
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This book promises a list of small things you can do to improve your leadership skills, but really it’s a much more philosophical book than that. Often, I had to really dig to figure out what the “small thing” or action I was supposed to glean from an example. Sometimes I couldn’t find it. The organization of the book really doesn’t make sense, it’s more like “anecdotes about leadership and lessons to be learned from them”, and splitting the book up between Manager, Director, and Executive is not relevant to most of the examples and stories. Anyway, it was interesting!
6 people found this helpful
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LL
5.0 out of 5 stars Loved it! An easy read - no waffle
Reviewed in the United States on August 11, 2022
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I really enjoyed reading this book. It was insightful, succinct and engaging.Great read for someone starting out on their leadership path.
Michael is a clever writer, self deprecating and witty. I’ve highlighted many passages!
One person found this helpful
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Kindle Customer
2.0 out of 5 stars Junk!
Reviewed in the United States on December 28, 2020
Verified Purchase
Total waste of my time and money. The tone of the book is so irritating that I had to stop reading after 70-80 pages.

It looked as if he had a few good points to make but what I found beyond was just ramblings and he comes across as a total jerk...
9 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

BM1628
5.0 out of 5 stars Great little book
Reviewed in Germany on October 20, 2021
Verified Purchase
I love this book. It keeps it short, well structured into different levels of management and adds context with great and fun to read examples. Worth a read for every manager!
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J. Ohlhauser
5.0 out of 5 stars Lopp's best yet
Reviewed in Canada on August 6, 2020
Verified Purchase
Well organized with practical, actionable advice for software development leaders.
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James Osborn
5.0 out of 5 stars Build trust and respect with principled consistency
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 18, 2020
Verified Purchase
This powerful and easy to read book presents thirty small things that you can do to build trust and to become a true leader to your team.

It takes you from Individual Contributor to Manager, Director and Executive, covering the changing roles and how they differ as the span of control grows.

It covers pitfalls (New Manager Death Spiral) and sometimes unexpected areas of focus (when recruiting, spend an hour per day per open role). Communication is a key theme, whether that's how to hold effective 1-2-1s, to say the hard thing or how to communicate difficult change through a large org. It recognises that you'll be bad at each of these roles for at least a few years until you master them, so embrace failures, learn from them and growth through the experience.

If you already follow Rands, then you'll be familiar with a lot of this content from his excellent blog. The book takes this to a next level, grouping, ordering and curating a common set of advice that is important for all leaders.

You'll read it fast, read it again slowly and then dip in again and again as time passes and you hit fresh challenges.
3 people found this helpful
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