The Geek Leader's Handbook: Essential Leadership Insight for People with Technical Backgrounds

by Paul Glen, Maria McManus

Mastering the Art of Technical LeadershipAs a dedicated leader, you’ve probably read everything you could on leadership. Many books have been written about it. But you’re a technical leader, so it’s guaranteed that much of what you’ve read is incomplete at best, and quite possibly inappropriate. Sure, you can learn a lot by studying ancient generals, sales gurus, or even Steve Jobs, but you’ve got to remember that Attila the Hun never deployed SAP.The Geek Leader's Handbook recognizes and respects the unique challenges that geek leaders face. It provides both practical advice and a framework rooted in the understanding are different.Geeks would rather lead technology than people, but only people can be led.Geeks have a hard time working with non-geeks, but those who learn to do it well become great geek leaders.The Geek Leader's Handbook gives you practical, immediately applicable advice tailored to the day-to-day challenges of technical leadership. You don’t need yet another laundry list of things you should do. To really grow as a leader, you need a solid framework to understand why these approaches make sense and to empower you to adapt them to your environment. The book also takes an unflinching look at what makes geeks different from other folk. To uncover those differences, co-authors Paul Glen and Maria McManus, collaborated as geek and non-geek. By synthesizing both perspectives, they reveal surprising and liberating insights that will help geeks become great leaders.

Genres: Management, Leadership, Nonfiction

364 pages, Kindle Edition

First published March 1, 2014

Reviews

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has a lot of helpful insight about working with Geeks.

[Matthew Odle · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found myself described in both archetypes: the geek who prefers hard technical problems and skills over soft ones, and can’t stand estimating or working on something for which the outcome is unclear because it feels like lying; but also the non-geek who prefers problems stated in forms of metaphors and stories, and places more importance on emotion and experience than facts. It highlighted some issues with the way I approach problems, such as focusing only on solvable issues and disregarding others, trying to phrase others’ desires in the form of what problem we’re trying to solve, and expecting others to conform to my worldview rather than trying to meet them closer to theirs. Overall it has some useful snippets that may help with smoothing over some of the more difficult aspects of working with others.

[Dave Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was gift from my employer. General disclaimer: two types of books that I can't stand and actively avoid are business books and self-help books, but this one directly relates to my recent career progression. I found it to be a bit of a mixed bag. The authors begin by indicating that they are focusing on "archetypes, not stereotypes," which is a noble goal. However, the "geek" depicted through the book from that point forward is nearly always a blatant stereotype: all programmers love math, all think extremely concretely, none like to show emotion, none understand how a business works.

There were some chapters that I found useful. Specifically, the discussion of promoting technical specialists too early was insightful to me. There were other bits and pieces here and there, but overall the book fell flat, the enlightening revelations that it promised buried in erroneous assumptions. It's not entirely without use for someone new in a technical leadership role, but don't go into it expecting everything that it claims to deliver.

[Christoph Kappel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book - it contained lots of insides, explanations and ideas how to handle overly technical folks. I especially found the idea about problem solver vs emotional support interesting.

[Christopher J Sorenson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent expansion of the technical mindset, and the struggles of communication with non technicals

[Kevin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so much better than Paul Glen's first book, Leading Geeks. I recommend reading both books, finishing with this one. It includes great insight into the mind of a technology professional and is a must for any tech leader.

[Mykhailo Kotsur · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very consistent and well-written book. Helps you to deal with the challenges that appear outside your team by understanding the reality of 'business' people which usually differs fro geeks' one.