Being a Leader

Through at least 2024, I am focusing most of my writing on what it means to be a leader in software development. These posts form a series that I will go back and revise into a cohesive whole once I’m through the “first draft.”

• Be a Leader in Thought and Deed

  

  Clouds © 2024 James Leonardo.

  If you have seen my LinkedIn Feed, you probably know that I’ve taken a new job leading Information Technology for biBerk Business Insurance. With the role change, I did a little reflection on habits and attitudes that have served me well over the years. For 2024, I’m going to do a series of those reflective thoughts and keep them to one-third to half of the length of what I’ve averaged over the last couple of years. I’m also going to try a bit different style, focusing on making these more like notes instead of articles. This time, a little thinking on thought leadership and working with your “head in the clouds and feet on the ground”.

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• Overlapping

  

  Photo by Annie Spratt (https://unsplash.com/@anniespratt) on Unsplash.

  In your career, should you specialize or be a generalist? Phrases like “jack of all trades and master of none” tend to make it sound like we should specialize and certainly the tendency in most organizations is to favor specialization. I do not think the question specialization versus generalization is the right question. What we should be asking is “how much we should overlap with the people around us?” The answer? A lot.

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• Will I Be a Good Manager? Part 1

  

  Photo by Sigmund (https://unsplash.com/@sigmund) on Unsplash.

  Drawing some inspiration from a few posts I have seen elsewhere recently, today I am sharing a few thoughts on preparing to be a manager. This will be a multi-part series with additional posts following at least through May of this year. Through this series, I will explore why empathy is one of the key traits for a manager, and sometimes for less than obvious reasons.

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• Becoming a Manager Part 2 - Job Postings

  

  Photo by Bram Naus (https://unsplash.com/@bramnaus) on Unsplash.

  Do you think about hiring when you think about being a manager? What comes to mind? Do you first think about crafting job postings? I am going out on a limb and guessing the answer is “no.” It is underrated and underappreciated and it is hard. No one ever taught me how to create a job posting! In this article, I share a few thoughts on that important first impression you make on your applicant by taking a “what not to do” approach. As a bonus, I also coin a new term: “bureaucroware”. Warning! Opinions ahead!

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• Becoming a Manager Part 3 - Reviewing resumes

  

  Photo by Bram Naus (https://unsplash.com/@bramnaus) on Unsplash.

  Last time I threw a few thoughts out there about creating a job posting. In this month’s post, I share some notes on the next stage: reviewing those resumes you got in response to your job posting.

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• Becoming a Manager Part 4 - Getting Ready for Interviews - Part 1

  

  Photo by Bram Naus (https://unsplash.com/@bramnaus) on Unsplash.

  Over the last few months, I’ve put a few thoughts out there about creating job postings and reviewing the resumes you receive. In this month’s post, I share some thoughts about preparing to conduct interviews. There’s much more said on the internet about conducting interviews versus creating job postings and reviewing resumes, so this is going to be a bunch of notes.

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• Becoming a Manager Part 5 - Getting Ready for Interviews - Part 2

  

  Photo by Bram Naus (https://unsplash.com/@bramnaus) on Unsplash.

  This year my focus is on collecting my thoughts on being a manager. A large part of that is hiring your team, so we’re in a series on the hiring process. Posts so far include creating job postings, reviewing the resumes you receive, and the first part of getting ready for interviews. In this post, I share more thoughts about getting ready for the interview.

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• Becoming a Manager Part 6 - Conducting Video Interviews

  

  Photo by Bram Naus (https://unsplash.com/@bramnaus) on Unsplash.

  This year my focus is on collecting my thoughts on being a manager. A large part of that is hiring your team, so we’re in a series on the hiring process. This time, a couple of notes on conducting a video interview.

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• Ghost Engineers: What is Productivity?

  

  Coding © 2024 James Leonardo. All Rights Reserved. PF Videotext Font by Panos Vassiliou

  Look! Yet another study about developer productivity! This time, it is a Twitter post made by a Stanford researcher who claims 9.5% of software engineers do almost nothing and are “Ghost Engineers.” In this post, I consider a couple of my own development anecdotes in light of this and the experience gained examining productivity within various teams over the years. The long and short of it: looking at code is not a valuable measure of individual productivity and individual productivity should not be what we are measuring anyway.

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